8 Oct
2008
8 Oct
'08
11:56 p.m.
On Oct 8, 2008, at 4:04 PM, Chris M wrote:
silly question...what would a person do with it? Yes
some people
actually do look for utility in some of their old clunkers (and
that one isn't that old I reckon). Could I...surf the web? Could
I...play some games? Obviously the thing could emulate anything on
the planet (I realize that's a possible response, so the sky is the
limit). But what are the practical applications that this thing
could be set to use from the get-go?
Surf the web or play games? No. Fortunately, I don't do either
of those things.
The SX-4B, like most supercomputers, is a math machine. It is
very good at many types of tasks that are mathematically intensive.
Image processing, fluid mechanics, weather simulation, cryptography,
etc. There's a lot more to computers than such trivial wastes of
time as surfing the web and playing games. ;)
As many here know, I have a few Cray supercomputers. Like the
SX-4B, they are math machines. As a specific example, I bought my
first Cray system for about $12,000.00. I used that machine to
develop and test image processing algorithms for a digital video
surveillance system that I built. I made back that $12,000.00 on the
first sale of that system. This SX-4B is quite a bit faster than
that particular Cray.
To be fair, I could've done that image processing work on my (very
fast) SGI desktop workstation instead of the Cray, but each test run
would've taken days rather than hours, and I'm a very impatient man.
I am currently using another Cray system in a medical application
that I can't talk about right now. (NDA) It is mathematically-
intensive and suits the architecture well.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL