U.S. Air Force\'s Super Computer get an upgrade

[Al]

http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/...3/bz/bz01a.html

Surprised me!  It right here in my islands, Maui to be exact.  But, it a PC.    
 
 [ 03-14-2003, 02:41 AM: Message edited by: Al ]

[Smokin78]

Hey Al!
Doesn't supprise me.  They get some pretty wild gear.  The military just dropped over $3,000,000,000 into a experimental project called NMCI (Navy Marine Core Internet)  The theory is that anyone anywhere at any time will be able to comunicate without flaw.  Well, since they skimped on the price and went with P.C. there are allready Major problems involving career fields like mine (Photo/Graphics) with this program.  Right now my Shop is running Macs. and they told us that if they can't get the P.C. to do what the
Macs do and at the same speeds, that they would leave us alone and let us keep our Macs.  

You guessed it.  Since they will be using Windows 2000, they can't get any software to support the high end priters we have and can't get near the Processing and Spooling speed as the Mac.  Because of us, the whole project is on hold, until they can figure out how to Match us.

This will take a while

[kps]

Hey, Al correct me if I'm wrong, but IBM processor =PowerPC ????

OMG, it's a giant Mac.

[Al]

Is that true, kps?  I'll take away my "eek" emoticon if it is...    

Wow, a giant Mac!

   

Chris  You mean that your holding up 3 trillion dollars?  Ah, the power of Macintosh computing...  
 
 [ 03-14-2003, 10:07 AM: Message edited by: Al ]

[dolphin]

Al, having been in the Air Force...they just call it a super computer...TS(top secret whether its a Mac or not), but WE know don't we????      
 
 [ 03-14-2003, 10:56 AM: Message edited by: dolphin ]

[Dreambird]

Are they in fact using IBM chips in Macs now? I thought last time I heard they were still "thinking" and using Motorola right now.

Of course this isn't the ones the public uses so who knows, I could be wrong...    

Now that Smokin78 mentions it... I remember that my sister whose a Graphic Designer with a small local newspaper was stuck with a PC for years... they had "nothing" but trouble between them and the people who did their printing, who were on Macs.
When the newspaper changed hands... the Graphics people got their shiny new G4 Macs...  
 
 [ 03-14-2003, 01:09 PM: Message edited by: Dreambird ]

[tacit]

Sorry to say, it's not a big Mac.  

The computer in question is built around IBM POWER3 processors. POWER3 procesors are architecturally similar to PowerPC processors, but they aren't the same, and they won't run PowerPC code.

The supercomputer is running an operating system called AIX, which is IBM's own proprietary flavor of UNIX, optimized for large-scale multiprocessor machines and massively parallel applications.

More information:

http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/News/Access/Relea...1007.MHPCC.html

[Al]

Thanks tacit for clearing the air, I guess I can still leave that eek emoticon there.     What an amazing computer that is, thou, I was trying to stay away from that MickyD's burger name.

[MamaMoose]

There are still faster machines at Livermore-Sandia Labs in Livermore, CA. Having been lucky enough to have access to supercomputers for the past 40+ years, I regard the maui system as medium powered. In 45 years we have gone from the IBM 650 (vacuum tubes, 1000 words of magnetic drum memory, bi-quinary basis, no languages, assembly, higher order, etc to todays systems. I expect we will see in the next few years machines with up to 200-300 teraflops (floating point operation)!!            

What I find fascinating is that the altivec-equipped Mac remins me in its power of the first Cray, Cray 1. Alsxo know that some of my colleagues are hooking up several hund computers in world-wide locations, to work simultaneously and in parallel!! Now thats some heavy duty compute power.

MamaMoose

[iGuy]

quote:You guessed it. Since they will be using Windows 2000, they can't get any software to support the high end priters we have and can't get near the Processing and Spooling speed as the Mac. Because of us, the whole project is on hold, until they can figure out how to Match us.

Smokin78, isn't the solution simple for them?  Use Macs instead of PC's.        Has that been suggested?

Ryan