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Component Software For as long as personal computers have existed, the industry has provided increasingly powerful hardware for CPU-hungry software. Companies such as Intel have upgraded their processors from 8 to 16 to 32 bits and have increased their clock speed from 4.77 to over 550 megahertz (MHz). Under development are 64-bit processors that will run at still higher clock speeds. Yet the cost of developing a new processor is so prohibitive that only the largest corporations can afford the expense of upgrading. And we might someday run into the law of diminishing returns, making the expense of development outweigh the possible improvements.