🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Jul29.181851.12025@news.eng.convex.com>,
jgardner@convex.com (John B. Gardner) writes:  
|> [ In response to remarks about the US gov not buying Japanese
     supercomputers]. 
|> 
|> Hold on a minute.  As easy as it would be for me to do flag waving about
|> American jobs and so forth (which I believe in), I believe there's a logical 
|> reason for the U.S. government to mandate U.S. manufactured supercomputers
|> for many installations.
|> 
|> Namely this;  A very large number of supercomputers purchased by the govt.
|> are for military or security operations (note, I don't *know* this, but I'd
|> say it's a pretty safe bet).  Relying on a foreign power for support, parts,
|> maintenance, etc. of a component that would be critical in wartime would be
|> extremely dangerous.
|> 
|> Now i hardly expect we will ever go to war with Japan, but lines of 
|> comunication and shipping capabilities could be seriously hampered if we
|> were at war with _anyone_.
|> 

Sigh.

1) Supercomputers are not widely used in command and control situations
   because they don't have the high mean time to failure.

2) Most US supercomputers are used for research which would probably
   stop in the kind of war being suggested above, and certainly not
   critical to the prosecution of such a war.

3) Not buying supercomputers for command and control does not imply
   not buying supercomputers for research.

Just because the NRO needs to function in a war doesn't mean NASA
can't buy a supercomputer for computational chemistry.
 
-- 
Martin Fouts                  |  M/S 1U-14
Member of Technical Staff     |  HP Laboratories
EMAIL:  fouts@hpl.hp.com      !  MAIL:  P.O. Box 10490
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novae erratae!