[wplug] New IBM supercomputer aiming for petaflop

[Mike Sussman]

> Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2006 09:28:05 -0700 (PDT)
> From: terry mcintyre <terrymcintyre at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [wplug] New IBM supercomputer aiming for petaflop
> To: General user list <wplug at wplug.org>
> Message-ID: <20060907162805.22822.qmail at web39806.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
> 
> 
> --- Brandon Kuczenski <brandon at 301south.net> wrote:
> Zach > >
> http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060906/tc_nm/ibm_supercomputer_dc
> 
> > Can they play Go yet?
> > 
> > -Brandon
> 
> Of course! GnuGo and a variety of other programs
> will play on any Linux computer. The question is,
> will this Petaflop processor play at Shodan levels,
> or not?
> 
> 
> Terry McIntyre
> UNIX for hire
> software development / systems administration / security
> 
> 310 630 7453 or 3106307453 at tmomail.com ( text )
> terrymcintyre at yahoo.com
> 
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It is true that any program that runs on Linux should run on this
supercomputer, BUT an ordinary program will run on only one "node" of
the supercomputer.  The supercomputer is made of "nodes" each of which
is a commodity part (read: an ordinary, but very high-end, PC), so your
program will run no faster on the supercomputer than on a high-end PC.

In order to get anything like petaflop performance, it will take a
complete rewrite of the program to take into account ways of
communicating partial results from node to node as well as coordinating
the nodes for scheduling and to avoid duplication of work.

-- 
Mike Sussman
sussmanm at math.pitt.edu