Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips (
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Robert Myers wrote:
> K Williams wrote:
>
>> Robert Myers wrote:
>>
>>
>>>K Williams wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>As much as you (and indeed I) may wish otherwise, IBM is *not*
>>>>in
>>>>the risk business these days. If it's not a sure thing it will
>>>>simply not be funded. Sure a few bucks for another deep-purple
>>>>or a letterbox commercial works...
>>>>
>>>
>>>I'm not smart enough to understand what's IBM and what's Wall
>>>Street, but I agree with you that bold initiatives are something
>>>we should not be looking for from IBM, and the wizards in
>>>Washington are as keen as everyone else to buy off the shelf
>>>these days.
>>
>>
>> Exactly. Off-the-shelf is "cheap". ...even if it doesn't work.
>> ;-)
>>
>
> Is it too optimistic to imagine that we may be coming to some kin
>of closure? That you can do so much with off-the-shelf hardware
> is both an opportunity and a trap. The opportunity is that you
> can do more for
> less. The trap is that you may not be able to do enough or nearly
> as much as you might do if you were a bit more adventurous.
Gee, fantasy meets reality, once again. The reality is that what we
have is "good enough". It's up to you softies to make your stuff
fit within the hard realities of physics. That is, it's *all*
about algorithms. Don't expect us hardware types to bail you out
of your problems anymore. We're knocking on the door of hard
physics, so complain to the guys across the Boneyard from MRL.
> It apparently didn't take too many poundings from clusters of
> boxes at supercomputer shows to drive both the customers and the
> manufacturers of
> big iron into full retreat.
Perhaps because *cheap* clusters could solve the "important"
problems, given enough thought? Of course the others are deemed to
be "unimportant", by definition. ...at least until there is a
solution. ;-)
> The benchmark that has been used to
> create and celebrate those artificial victories was almost
> _designed_ to create such an outcome, and the Washington wizards,
> understandably tired of being made fools of, have run up the white
> flag--with the exception of the Cray X-1, which didn't get built
> without significant pressure.
Ok...
>
> I'm hoping that AMD makes commodity eight-way Opteron work and
> that it
> is popular enough to drive significant market competition. Then
> my battle cry will be: don't waste limited research resources
> trying to be a clever computer builder--what can you do with
> whatever you want to purchase or build that you can't do with an
> eight-way Opteron?
I'm hoping for the same. ...albeit for a different reason.
> The possibilities for grand leaps just don't come from plugging
> commodity boxes together, or even from plugging boards of
> commodity
> processors together. If you can't make a grand leap, it really
> isn't worth the bother (that's the statement that makes enemies
> for me--people may not know how to do much else, but they sure do
> know how to run cable).
IMHO, we're not going to see any grand leaps in hardware. We have
some rather hard limits here. "186,000mi/sec isn't just a good
idea, it's the *LAW*", sort of thing.
No doubt were currently running into what ammounts to a technology
speedbump, but there *are* some hard limits were starting to see.
It's up to you algorithm types now. ;-)
> Just a few years ago, I thought commodity clusters were a great
> idea. The more I look at the problem, the more I believe that off
> the shelf
> should be really off the shelf, not do-it-yourself. It's not that
> the do it yourself clusters can't do more for cheap--they
> can--they just don't do enough more to make it really worth the
> bother.
Why should the hardware vendor anticipate what *you* want? You pay,
they listen. This is a simple fact of life.
> Processors with *Teraflop* capabilities are a reality, and not
> just in
> artificially inflated numbers for game consoles. Not only do
> those teraflop chips wipe the floor with x86 and Itanium for the
> problems you really need a breakthrough for, they don't need
> warehouses full of routers, switches, and cable to get those
> levels of performance.
So buy them. I guess I don't understand your problem. They're
reality, so...
> Clusters of very low-power chips, a la Blue Gene was not a dumb
> idea, it just isn't bold enough--you still need those warehouses,
> a separate power plant to provide power and cooling, and
> _somebody_ is paying for the real estate, even if it doesn't show
> up in the price of the machine.
> _Maybe_ some combination of Moore's law, network on a chip, and
> a
> breakthrough in board level interconnect could salvage the future
> of conventional microprocessors for "supercomputing," but right
> now, the future sure looks like streaming processors to me, and
> not just because they remind me of the Cray 1.
Yawn! So go *do* it. The fact is that it would be there if there
was a market. No, likely not from IBM, at least until someone else
proved there was $billions to be made. IBM is all about $billions.
> Streaming processors a slam dunk? Apparently not. They're hard
> to
> program and inflexible. IBM is the builder of choice for them at
> the
> moment. Somebody else, though, will have to come up with the
> money.
Builder, perhaps. Architect/proponent/financier? I don't think
so. ...at least not the way this peon sees things. I've had many
wishes over the years, This doesn't even come close to my list of
"good ideas wasted on dumb management",
--
Keith
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