22 Dec
2010
22 Dec
'10
4:44 p.m.
On 22 Dec 2010 at 7:44, Tim Shoppa wrote:
Bringing back that exhiliration by running the same hardware that was
new 20 years ago, but today? It's just not the same. Again, the fickle
world of parallel supercomputing.
These are machines that are fine for displaying in museums, they were
truly the pinnacle of parallel supercomputing for a couple years. I'm
very happy that CHM has examples of each. But not at home :-).
I pointed it out because (a) the Intel i860 was yet another stumble
by Intel to get away from the 8008 architecture (the 432 being only a
slightly earlier one--and one in a diametrically opposite direction)
and the application (cluster) was novel.
As far as speed, well, I have no doubt that a cluster of today's game
consoles can outperform it. But that's the story of computing.
As to the applicability as a home machine, I think we've seen
demonstrations on this list of the futility of that label!
--Chuck