12 Apr
2012
12 Apr
'12
11:58 a.m.
I know someone will be interested in this article
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/125271-the-history-of-supercomputers
12 Apr
12 Apr
12:41 p.m.
On 12 Apr 2012 at 8:58, Christian Liendo wrote:
I know someone will be interested in this article
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/125271-the-history-of-supercomputer
s
Woefully incomplete and in many ways, inaccurate. Where's the
Burroughs BSP?, ILLIAC, the TI ASC, The CDC 6700 (2 CPU), STAR,
7600...?
--Chuck
3:50 p.m.
In article <4F86A340.31192.A5EB9 at cclist.sydex.com>,
"Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> writes:
Woefully incomplete and in many ways, inaccurate.
Where's the
Burroughs BSP?, ILLIAC, the TI ASC, The CDC 6700 (2 CPU), STAR,
7600...?
Better to comment on the original article than here, though.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
5 p.m.
On 12 Apr 2012 at 13:50, Richard wrote:
Better to comment on the original article than here,
though.
Oh, I don't know, Richard. Misinformation abounds all over the place
and nobody's going to pay attention to an old fart asking "Wass you
dere, Shollie?"
Might as well air my grumpy ramblings here.
--Chuck
1:36 p.m.
On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 17:58, Christian Liendo
<christian_liendo at yahoo.com> wrote:
I know someone will be interested in this article
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/125271-the-history-of-supercomputers
What made me crack up is that I recognized the photo on the second
page; just this past weekend (easter sunday) I tried making the very
same photo (and failed due to my flash being off): it's the Cray at
the Deutsches Museum in M?nchen. My picture also has a tour group
gawking at the IBM 360 in the background.
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/4er72SKIMevnbUsAzRwEZbrfXPLP6DliFeU7o…
Going on a topic drift, the Zuse, that is a thing to behold!
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/jT6-ZccB_ATSkIMzJNkjdbrfXPLP6DliFeU7o…
Sadly, I had to rush though that portion of the museum. The whole
museum deserves a multi-day visit, not just an afternoon.
--
Joachim Thiemann :: http://jthiem.bitbucket.org
2:53 p.m.
Christian Liendo wrote:
I know someone will be interested in this article
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/125271-the-history-of-supercomputers
If the CDC 6600 was "actually fairly small ? about the size of four
filing cabinets", then the author has apparently seen *MUCH* larger
filing cabinets than I ever have. I think the overall volume is closer
to that of about 15 normal-sized four-drawer filing cabinets.
Personally, I'm skeptical about there being any reasonable definition of
"supercomputer" by which the IBM 7030 ("Stretch", 1961) and NORC
(1954)
didn't qualify. In fact, although the Wikipedia article on
supercomputers doesn't mention NORC, the article on NORC quotes Frank da
Cruz of Columbia University as stating that NORC was the first
supercomputer. Giving credit where credit is due, Seymour Cray probably
did more to advance the state of the art of supercomputers than any
other individual, but claims of the 6600 being the first supercomputer
strike me as being revisionist history.
4:57 p.m.
On 12 Apr 2012 at 11:53, Eric Smith wrote:
Giving credit where credit is due, Seymour Cray
probably did more to advance the state of the art of supercomputers
than any other individual, but claims of the 6600 being the first
supercomputer strike me as being revisionist history.
I don't recall CDC ever calling the 6600 a "supercomputer"; they may
have done so with the 7600--they certainly did so with the STAR (ca.
1969).
Part of revisionism it seems to me, is the attempt to couch older
technology in modern "in" terms. For example, consider the WikiP
article on the TI ASC (a "supercomputer" if there ever was one).
Talking about the functional units of the 6600 as "cores" seems to me
to be stretching things. Back then, a "core" meant something very
different.
--Chuck
6:05 p.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
I don't recall CDC ever calling the 6600 a
"supercomputer"; they may
have done so with the 7600--they certainly did so with the STAR (ca.
1969).
Whether it was called a "supercomputer" at the time, and whether it was
a supercomputer, are two different questions.
Karl Benz created an automobile in 1885, but he didn't call it that.
6:27 p.m.
On 12 Apr 2012 at 15:05, Eric Smith wrote:
Chuck Guzis wrote:
I take your point, but there's a difference between calling something
a "duck" and a "super-duck". The first is largely an accepted term
of art; the second is more of a qualitative judgement. (Is a
superduck just a duck that wears lederhosen--or are there other
requirements?). It helps if the thing was called that by some
contemporary industry source.
--Chuck
I don't recall CDC ever calling the 6600 a
"supercomputer"; they may
have done so with the 7600--they certainly did so with the STAR (ca.
1969).
Whether it was called a "supercomputer" at the time, and whether it
was a supercomputer, are two different questions.
Karl Benz created an automobile in 1885, but he didn't call it that.
8:21 p.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
I take your point, but there's a difference
between calling something
a "duck" and a "super-duck". The first is largely an accepted term of
art; the second is more of a qualitative judgement. (Is a superduck
just a duck that wears lederhosen--or are there other requirements?).
It helps if the thing was called that by some contemporary industry
source.
Certainly the people that built NORC and Stretch knew full well that
they were building dramatically more powerful computers than existed
previously. It didn't happen by accident. If you had asked them at the
time if they were trying to create a supercomputer, I expect that they
would have answered in the affirmative. Admittedly that is only
speculation.
Eric
9:45 p.m.
Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2012 17:21:18 -0700
From: eric at brouhaha.com
To:
Subject: Re: The History of SuperComputers
Chuck Guzis wrote:
I'll recommend this "The Supermen, the Story of Seymour Cray"
http://www.amazon.com/The-Supermen-Seymour-Technical-Supercomputer/dp/produ…
I take your point, but there's a difference
between calling something
a "duck" and a "super-duck". The first is largely an accepted term of
art; the second is more of a qualitative judgement. (Is a superduck
just a duck that wears lederhosen--or are there other requirements?).
It helps if the thing was called that by some contemporary industry
source.
Certainly the people that built NORC and Stretch knew full well that
they were building dramatically more powerful computers than existed
previously. It didn't happen by accident. If you had asked them at the
time if they were trying to create a supercomputer, I expect that they
would have answered in the affirmative. Admittedly that is only
speculation.
Eric
10:10 p.m.
I'll recommend this "The Supermen, the Story
of Seymour Cray"
http://www.amazon.com/The-Supermen-Seymour-Technical-Supercomputer/dp/produ…
+1, that's an entertaining and informative book. Although it's quite
biased toward Cray.
13 Apr
13 Apr
4:24 a.m.
On Thu, 12 Apr 2012, Eric Smith wrote:
Certainly the people that built NORC and Stretch knew
full well that they
were building dramatically more powerful computers than existed previously.
Was that really a drama to build powerful computers, or did they build
drastically more powerful computers? ;-)
Christian
6:18 p.m.
But, once the marketing people heard the term, and realized there was no
FORMAL definition, it was subjected to horrendous abuse.
At one point, our administration gave me a sheaf of papers to fill out (I
refused) for acceptance of a donation of a "SUPER Microcomputer". It was
a Z80 machine running MP/M, and we could have found a use for it. But it
was no more "Super" than a Packard-Bell PC.
12 Apr
12 Apr
9:06 p.m.
On 2012 Apr 12, at 11:53 AM, Eric Smith wrote:
Christian Liendo wrote:
The LARC should also have been mentioned.
I suppose mentioning ILLIAC IV might be considered contentious.
I know someone will be interested in this
article
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/125271-the-history-of-
supercomputers
If the CDC 6600 was "actually fairly small ? about the size of four
filing cabinets", then the author has apparently seen *MUCH* larger
filing cabinets than I ever have. I think the overall volume is
closer to that of about 15 normal-sized four-drawer filing cabinets.
Personally, I'm skeptical about there being any reasonable
definition of "supercomputer" by which the IBM 7030 ("Stretch",
1961) and NORC (1954) didn't qualify. In fact, although the Wikipedia article on
supercomputers doesn't
mention NORC, the article on NORC quotes Frank da Cruz of Columbia
University as stating that NORC was the first supercomputer. Giving
credit where credit is due, Seymour Cray probably did more to
advance the state of the art of supercomputers than any other
individual, but claims of the 6600 being the first supercomputer
strike me as being revisionist history.
4460
days inactive
4461
days old
15 comments
10 participants
participants (10)
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cc＠informatik.uni-stuttgart.de -
cclist＠sydex.com -
christian_liendo＠yahoo.com -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
eric＠brouhaha.com -
evan＠snarc.net -
hilpert＠cs.ubc.ca -
joachim.thiemann＠gmail.com -
legalize＠xmission.com -
rdawson16＠hotmail.com