[GreenKeys] Bletchley Park...

[Chris Elmquist]

On Wednesday (03/04/2009 at 07:47AM -0000), Craig Sawyers wrote:
> > Actually, speaking as one of the troublemakers designing these
> > supercomputers today...  it's not quite that bad.
> >
> > For example this system, for which I did much of the architecture,
> 
> That has me seriously impressed.
> 
> Having stood in the supercomputer hall at the Daresbury lab in the UK a year
> or so ago, and had to shout over the roar of the aircon system that occupied
> one long wall, it does leave a lasting impression of computing writ large.
> Although, looking at the specs for that machine (HPCx - IBM based
> http://www.cse.scitech.ac.uk/hpc/index.shtml) and the new UK facility
> (HECTOR - CRAY based http://www.hector.ac.uk/), the NASA SGI machine is
> vastly higher specced - by a factor of several in TeraFlops and storage.
> 
> My hat off sir.

Thanks.  It has been an adventure that's for sure.  You can read other
stuff about SGI and although we can build the biggest and fastest systems
in the world, we're also going broke.  So, I can't say how much longer
this adventure will last unfortunately.

Chris