more on Creating A Supercomputer from Playstations

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 16:43:09 -0400
> From: "Ross, Patrick" <pross () warren-news com>
>
>
> Well Dave,
>
> One interesting thing about it is that late last week, the House rejected an
> amendment that would have revisited the MTOPS (millions of theoretical
> operations per second) limit for exports of computers to so-called Tier III
> countries like China and India.  The current MTOPS limit is, I believe,
> 19,000 MTOPS, and this story suggests they created a supercomputer capable
> of 500,000 MTOPS with 70 PS2s.  Another twist, under the previous MTOPS
> limit of 2,000, a single PS2 exceeded the export limit.  Bottom line --
> MTOPS has probably outlived its usefulness, assuming terrorists can purchase
> game consoles at Toys R Us, but Congress hasn't realized that yet.
>
> Patrick Ross
> Associate Managing Editor
> Washington Internet Daily
> Washington, D.C.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dave Farber [mailto:dave () farber net]
> Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2003 4:14 PM
> To: ip () v2 listbox com
> Subject: [IP] Creating A Supercomputer from Playstations
>
>
> Why is this new? While it is cute, so??? djf
>
>
>
> >Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 16:05:34 -0400
> >From: Gerald Ballman <ballman () usna edu>
> >
> >
> >
> >http://www.rednova.com/news/stories/3/2003/05/27/story002.html
> >
> >Creating A Supercomputer from Playstations
> >
> >By John Markoff,
> >
> >NY Times/CNET News -- As perhaps the clearest
> >evidence yet of the power of sophisticated but
> >inexpensive game consoles, the National Center for
> >Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois
> >at Urbana-Champaign has assembled a supercomputer
> >from an army of Sony PlayStation 2 devices.
> >
> >The resulting system, with components purchased at
> >retail prices, cost a little more than $50,000.
> >Researchers at the supercomputing center believe the
> >system may be capable of a half trillion operations a
> >second, well within the definition of supercomputer,
> >although it may not rank among the world's 500 fastest
> >supercomputers.
> >
> >Perhaps the most striking aspect of the project, which uses the
> >open-source Linux operating
> >system, is that the only hardware engineering involved was placing 70 of
> >the individual game
> >machines in a rack and plugging them together with a high-speed
> >Hewlett-Packard network
> >switch.
> >
> >The center's scientists bought 100 machines but are holding 30 in reserve,
> >possibly for
> >high-resolution display application.
> >
> >"It took a lot of time because you have to cut all of these things out of
> >the plastic
> >packaging," said Craig Steffen, a senior research scientist at the center,
> >who is one of four
> >scientists working part time on the project.
> >
> >The scientists are taking advantage of a
> >standard component of the PS2 that was
> >originally intended to move and transform
> >pixels rapidly on a television screen to
> >produce lifelike graphics.
> >
> >That chip is not the PlayStation 2's MIPS
> >microprocessor, but rather a graphics
> >co-processor known as the Emotion Engine.
> >That custom-designed silicon chip is capable
> >of producing up to 6.5 billion mathematical
> >operations a second.
> >
> >The impressive performance of the game
> >machine, which has been on the market for
> >a few years, underscores a radical shift that
> >has taken place in the computing world
> >since the end of the Cold War in the late
> >1980s, according to the researchers.
> >
> >While the most advanced computing technologies have historically been
> >developed first for large
> >corporate users and military contractors, increasingly the fastest
> >computers are being developed
> >for the consumer market and for products meant to be placed under Christmas
> >trees.
> >
> >"If you look at the economics of game platforms and the power of computing
> >on toys, this is a
> >long-term market trend and computing trend," said Dan Reed, the
> >supercomputing center's
> >director. "The economics are just amazing. This is going to drive the next
> >big wave in
> >high-performance computing."
> >
> >The scientists have their eyes on a variety of consumer hardware, he said.
> >For example Nvidia,
> >the maker of graphics cards for PCs, is now selling a high-performance
> >graphics card capable of
> >executing 51 billion mathematical operations per second.
> >
> >The pace of the consumer computing world is moving so quickly that the
> >researchers are building
> >the PlayStation 2-based supercomputer as an experiment to see how quickly
> >they can take
> >advantage of off-the-shelf, low-cost technologies.
> >
> >"I think we'd like to be able to transfer a lot of our experience to the
> >next generation," he
> >said.
> >
> >Despite the computing promise of game consoles that sell for less than
> >$200, the researchers
> >acknowledged that the experiment was likely to be most useful for a group
> >of relatively narrow
> >scientific problems.
> >
> >They added that while the system was already doing scientific
> >calculations, they cannot be
> >certain about its ultimate computing potential until they write more
> >carefully tuned software
> >routines that can move data in and out of the custom processor quickly.
> >
> >The limited memory of the Sony game console--32MB of memory--would also
> >restrict the practical
> >applications of the supercomputer, they said.
> >
> >But they noted that the computer was already running useful calculations
> >on quantum
> >chromodynamics, or QCD, simulations. QCD is a theory concerning the
> >so-called strong
> >interactions that bind elementary particles like quarks and gluons
> >together to form hadrons,
> >the
> >constituents of nuclear matter.
> >
> >The ability to lower the cost of QCD simulation in itself would be
> >significant, the researchers
> >said, because such problems are the single largest consumer of computing
> >resources on
> >supercomputers at the Department of Energy and the National Energy
> >Research Scientific
> >Computing Center.
> >
> >Still, several supercomputer experts said that the memory and computing
> >bandwidth limitations
> >of the PlayStation would prohibit broader applications of the machine.
> >
> >Gordon Bell, a Microsoft computer scientist and a veteran of the
> >supercomputer world, said the
> >PlayStation supercomputer might find its best application as a computer
> >for the large digital
> >display walls that are used by the Defense Department.
> >
> >Bell awards annual computing prizes that include a category for the best
> >price/performance in
> >high performance computing. "They should enter my contest," he said.
> >
> >The supercomputing center's scientists said they had chosen the
> >PlayStation 2 because Sony
> >sells a special Linux module that includes a high-speed network connection
> >and a disk drive.
> >
> >By contrast, it is almost impossible for researchers to install the Linux
> >system on Microsoft's
> >Xbox game console.
> >
> >Using a network of machines is not a new concept in the supercomputing
> >world. Linux, which
> >plays a major role in that world, has been used to assemble
> >high-performance parallel computers
> >built largely out of commodity hardware components. These machines are
> >generally
> >called Beowulf clusters.
> >
> >-----
>
>
> -------------------------------------
> You are subscribed as pross () warren-news com
> To manage your subscription, go to
>   http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip
>
> Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/


-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as interesting-people () lists elistx com
To manage your subscription, go to
 http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/