Super Duper Computers
Posted by Johan Cyprich on 24 Nov 2008 | Tagged as: Technology
Back in university, we were using Amdahl terminals running off a mainframe running the MTS operating system. The speed we got from this machine was around 1 MHz. I wasn’t very impressed since my home computer was running at 4.77 MHz. However, the area where the mainframe wins is throughput. It could have hundreds of users and still run at 1 MHz. My home computer would slow to a halt if 10 users were on it simultaneously.
Mainframes will always be useful, and supercomputers even more so. Beowulf clusters are no match against a modern supercomputer. The New York Times recently published a chart showing world wide super computer usage, Mapping the World’s Fastest Supercomputers.
It shows the United States in a clear lead in the number of supercomputers in use and their fastest speeds. Other nations are catching up however. Western European nations and China are the biggest threats to dominance.
America will dominate for quite some time and even far into the future if the nation maintains its entrepreneurial spirit where inspired individuals push technology to its limits and create new technologies beyond it. All that you need is the freedom to innovate which is what drove the nation in the past.
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1 Comment »
on 25 Nov 2008 at 6:23 am 1.Super Duper Computers | cyprich.com said …
[...] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptBack in university, we were using Amdahl terminals running off a mainframe running the MTS operating system. The speed we got from this machine was around 1. [...]