🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1210@ogcvax.UUCP> pase@ogcvax.UUCP (Douglas M. Pase) writes:
>Distributed memory networks have been used for multi-user systems for several
>years now - cf. Apollo networks.  Some, at least, would argue they have been
>used successfully.  However, machines like the iPSC were designed to do heavy
>computing, and NOT a lot of resource sharing.  The cube manager is too much of
>a bottleneck to be used as a resource server to the tower.
> . . .
>The hypercube is set up to do number crunching, with lots of operations per
>byte of I/O.
>-- 
>Doug Pase   --   ...ucbvax!tektronix!ogcvax!pase   or   pase@Oregon-Grad

Hypercubes were not designed to do a lot of heavy computing.  You would
be putting them into the Cray class of processor, and everyone's
experience has been to the contrary.  Heavy computing requires a well
thought out (balanced) structure to prevent things like an I/O bottleneck.
A hypercube is far from a typical end-user machine.

The marketing hype which has surrounded hypercubes astounds me.  It
turns out the ONLY person I have heard a level-headed response from was
Justin Rattner of Intel who stated that these machines are research
machines to provide exposure to people on the problems of doing parallel
programming.  They are not designed to replace Crays or compete with
them.  To believe so would involve a great deal of misunderstanding.
There are now five (if not more) companies selling hypercube
architectures out there, I doubt if any will survive in the long term
(in the hypercube market).  Don't hold your breath for software either.
Don't expect to take you dusty deck C or Fortran and have it automatically
parallelize it (when it does, we will have achieved true AI 8-).

From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

--eugene miya
  NASA Ames Research Center
  eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."
  {hplabs,hao,nike,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix,menlo70}!ames!aurora!eugene

p.s. the only buzzword I didn't use was A*a.