3 ms·

I don't think it's finished until we can run the Cray OS in javascript in our browser. 1000 times faster than the original. It is not only the computing advan

by ck2 13y ago

I don't think it's finished until we can run the Cray OS in javascript in our browser. 1000 times faster than the original. It is not only the computing advances that are amazing, those "seats" around the Cray are actually the power supply!

agumonkey 13y ago
Ha, I thought there were cooling modules. Anyway, back in those days your supercomputer double as a bench, take that air thin tablets.
- ck2 13y ago
  Well the power supply did need its own cooling too since it was 115,000 watts. Here's a cutaway http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6e/Cray_1_IMG_9126.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6e/Cray_1_IM... Think about the fact not only an iphone has more computing power but 115 kilowatts vs 5 watts.
  - agumonkey 13y ago
    I know I know, and I like to think that there are millions more iPhones than Crays yet almost nothing comes out of them. jiggles
4ad 13y ago
A Cray-1 does 80MFLOPS. 80GFLOPS is around what a current i7 CPU can do. You can't emulate a 80GFLOPS machine in javascript right now. A Cray X-MP is 800MFLOPS and a Cray 2 is 1.9GFLOPS. These are not PDP-11s we're talking about here. Bellard's x86 js emulator, which is as good as it can get, has a performance comparable with a 486. A 486 is slower than a Cray 1. It seems that even today you can't emulate a cray in the browser at native speed, nothing can come close to that 1000 times faster idea. Please also remember that these system had massive memory bandwidth, and supported non-sequential workloads better than current computers which rely a lot on caches. Even if you can get the emulated peak performance of Cray 1 in javascript, for real tasks that this computers was used for it would be slower.
- pohl 13y ago
  A Cray-1 does 80MFLOPS. 80GFLOPS is around what a current i7 CPU can do. You can't emulate a 80GFLOPS machine in javascript right now. You switched units from mega to giga there.
- beat 13y ago
  The memory architecture is a very good point. It's fundamentally different from the x86-derived systems we all use today. Besides, if you really want to emulate a Cray, it's not the OS that's important so much as that almighty FORTRAN compiler! Part of the fun of working with old Cray guys was listening to the ranting about how FORTRAN is the Best Language Ever and that by removing a layer of memory indirection, it's faster than even C. Of course, you're then hardcoding the living crap out of everything, but that was handwaved away as a minor price to be paid for real performance....
  - 0xdeadbeefbabe 13y ago
    Was anyone interested in forth on the cray too?
    - 4ad 13y ago
      No idea, but my understanding of the architecture is that it wouldn't work well.

by ck2 13y ago

agumonkey 13y ago

Ha, I thought there were cooling modules. Anyway, back in those days your supercomputer double as a bench, take that air thin tablets.

ck2 13y ago
Well the power supply did need its own cooling too since it was 115,000 watts. Here's a cutaway http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6e/Cray_1_IMG_9126.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6e/Cray_1_IM... Think about the fact not only an iphone has more computing power but 115 kilowatts vs 5 watts.
- agumonkey 13y ago
  I know I know, and I like to think that there are millions more iPhones than Crays yet almost nothing comes out of them. jiggles

4ad 13y ago

A Cray-1 does 80MFLOPS. 80GFLOPS is around what a current i7 CPU can do. You can't emulate a 80GFLOPS machine in javascript right now. A Cray X-MP is 800MFLOPS and a Cray 2 is 1.9GFLOPS. These are not PDP-11s we're talking about here. Bellard's x86 js emulator, which is as good as it can get, has a performance comparable with a 486. A 486 is slower than a Cray 1. It seems that even today you can't emulate a cray in the browser at native speed, nothing can come close to that 1000 times faster idea. Please also remember that these system had massive memory bandwidth, and supported non-sequential workloads better than current computers which rely a lot on caches. Even if you can get the emulated peak performance of Cray 1 in javascript, for real tasks that this computers was used for it would be slower.

pohl 13y ago
A Cray-1 does 80MFLOPS. 80GFLOPS is around what a current i7 CPU can do. You can't emulate a 80GFLOPS machine in javascript right now. You switched units from mega to giga there.
beat 13y ago
The memory architecture is a very good point. It's fundamentally different from the x86-derived systems we all use today. Besides, if you really want to emulate a Cray, it's not the OS that's important so much as that almighty FORTRAN compiler! Part of the fun of working with old Cray guys was listening to the ranting about how FORTRAN is the Best Language Ever and that by removing a layer of memory indirection, it's faster than even C. Of course, you're then hardcoding the living crap out of everything, but that was handwaved away as a minor price to be paid for real performance....
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 13y ago
  Was anyone interested in forth on the cray too?
  - 4ad 13y ago
    No idea, but my understanding of the architecture is that it wouldn't work well.