[geeks] fwd: IBM supercomputer dual-boots Windows and Linux

[Shannon Hendrix]

On Jun 19, 2008, at 18:35 , Sandwich Maker wrote:

> " From: "Jonathan Katz" <jon at jonworld.com>
> "
> " []
> "
> " I'm still at odds with calling the cluster of whatever-1U-du-jour
> " hooked together with Gigabit Ethernet or Myrinet a supercomputer  
> even
> " if the top500 list does. To me a super computer is a big monolithic
> " beastie that has a single OS image on it.
>
> i can live with hardware clusters [though i think linking machines
> with a network is rather stretching it],

Down this path lies madness...

I don't see what the connections have to do with anything, since "a  
computer" here and there has used networks for system I/O for decades  
now.  Most PC motherboards do it these days too.

Also, an awful lot of "a computer" systems run more than one CPU and  
often not all of them run the same OS.

Is a Mac Pro with an SMC controller, a RAID controller, and several  
drives "a computer"?

After all:

The SMC controller is a tiny CPU with a tiny OS.

The RAID controller is a fast CPU with a non-trivial OS.

Each SATA drive has a CPU and an OS, and some of them even have more  
than CPU on those little controller boards.

Even the nVidia graphics card in mine has a small object-oriented  
operating system in it complete with threaded process and I/O  
scheduler, etc.

I've been amazed at the devices where I've found ROM chips that have  
VxWorks stored on them, which were part of "a computer".

By your definition, my Mac Pro is not "a computer", it's several  
combined together.

I agree that a cluster of PCs is a "bunch of computers", but I wonder  
why we are willing to draw the line there when a lot of things we call  
"a computer" are also made up of 2 or more computers.

You have to admit, the lines are blurred a bit...

I think the big issue here is one of convenience, not technical  
accuracy.

We like for things to be clarified and classified, fitting into neat  
little boxes, and it's actually quite rare for that to be true.

We love our illusions.

-- 
Shannon Hendrix
shannon at widomaker.com