Optics in computing, - 40 years later.

Optical signal processing and computing was triggered by the invention of the laser. Starting practically in 1960, it really took off with the introduction of the spatial matched filter in 1964. About 36 years later we are still far from extensive use of optics in traditional computing systems. In this presentation we shall overview the developments during these 40 years and discuss the advantages, disadvantages and limitations (fundamental as well as technological) of optics for this application. Extending the concept of computing and introducing the notion of Application Oriented Computing, we demonstrate that optics already plays an important, and rapidly growing role in advanced computing paradigms, although in a different way than it was initially anticipated.