Seymour Cray and the Supercomputer

Seymour Cray and the Supercomputer Many of us are familiar with computers. You’re likely using one now to read this blog post as devices such as laptops, smartphones and tablets are essentially the same underlying computing technology. Supercomputers, on the other hand, are somewhat esoteric as they’re often thought of as hulking, costly, energy-sucking machines developed, by and large, for government institutions, research centers, and large firms. Take for instance China’s Sunway TaihuLight, currently the world’s fastest supercomputer, according to Top500’s supercomputer rankings. It’s comprised of 41,000 chips (the processors alone weigh over 150 tons), cost about $270 million and has a power rating of 15,371 kW. On the plus side, however, it’s capable of performing quadrillions of calculations per second and can store up to 100 million books. And like other supercomputers, it’ll be used to tackle some of the most complex tasks in the fields of science such as weather forecasting and drug research. When Supercomputers Were Invented The notion of a supercomputer first arose in the 1960s when an electrical engineer named Seymour Cray, embarked on creating the world’s fastest computer. Cray, considered the â€Å"father of supercomputing,† had left his post at business computing giant Sperry-Rand to join the newly formed Control Data Corporation so that he can focus on developing scientific computers. The title of world’s fastest computer was held at the time by the IBM 7030 â€Å"Stretch,† one of the first to use transistors instead of vacuum tubes.   In 1964, Cray introduced the CDC 6600, which featured innovations such as switching out germanium transistors in favor of silicon and a Freon-based cooling system. More importantly, it ran at a speed of 40 MHz, executing roughly three million floating-point operations per second, which made it the fastest computer in the world. Often considered to be the world’s first supercomputer, the CDC 6600 was 10 times faster than most computers and three times faster than the IBM 7030 Stretch. The title was eventually relinquished in 1969 to its successor the CDC 7600.  Ã‚   Seymour Cray Goes Solo In 1972, Cray left Control Data Corporation to form his own company, Cray Research. After some time raising seed capital and financing from investors, Cray debuted the Cray 1, which again raised the bar for computer performance by a wide margin. The new system ran at a clock speed of 80 MHz and performed 136 million floating-point operations per second (136 megaflops). Other unique features include a newer type of processor (vector processing) and a speed-optimized horseshoe-shaped design that minimized the length of the circuits. The Cray 1 was installed at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1976. By the 1980s Cray had established himself as the preeminent name in supercomputing and any new release was widely expected to topple his previous efforts. So while Cray was busy working on a successor to the Cray 1, a separate team at the company put out the Cray X-MP, a model that was billed as a more â€Å"cleaned up† version of the Cray 1. It shared the same horseshoe-shape design, but boasted multiple processors, shared memory and is sometimes described as two Cray 1s linked together as one. The Cray X-MP (800 megaflops) was one of the first â€Å"multiprocessor† designs and helped open the door to parallel processing, wherein computing tasks are split into parts and executed simultaneously by different processors.   The Cray X-MP, which was continually updated, served as the standard bearer until the long-anticipated launch of the Cray 2 in 1985. Like its predecessors, Cray’s latest and greatest took on the same horseshoe-shaped design and basic layout with integrated circuits stacked together on logic boards. This time, however, the components were crammed so tightly that the computer had to be immersed in a liquid cooling system to dissipate the heat. The Cray 2 came equipped with eight processors, with a â€Å"foreground processor† in charge of handling storage, memory and giving instructions to the â€Å"background processors,† which were tasked with the actual computation. Altogether, it packed a processing speed of 1.9 billion floating point operations per second (1.9 Gigaflops), two times faster than the Cray X-MP. More Computer Designers Emerge Needless to say, Cray and his designs ruled the early era of the supercomputer. But he wasn’t the only one advancing the field. The early ’80s also saw the emergence of massively parallel computers, powered by thousands of processors all working in tandem to smash though performance barriers. Some of the first multiprocessor systems were created by W. Daniel Hillis, who came up with the idea as a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The goal at the time was to overcome to the speed limitations of having a CPU direct computations among the other processors by developing a decentralized network of processors that functioned similarly to the brain’s neural network. His implemented solution, introduced in 1985 as the Connection Machine or CM-1, featured 65,536 interconnected single-bit processors. The early ’90s marked the beginning of the end for Cray’s stranglehold on supercomputing. By then, the supercomputing pioneer had split off from Cray Research to form Cray Computer Corporation. Things started to go south for the company when the Cray 3 project, the intended successor to the Cray 2, ran into a whole host of problems. One of Cray’s major mistakes was opting for gallium arsenide semiconductors – a newer technology as a way to achieve his stated goal of a twelvefold improvement in processing speed. Ultimately, the difficulty in producing them, along with other technical complications, ended up delaying the project for years and resulted in many of the company’s potential customers eventually losing interest. Before long, the company ran out of money and filed for bankruptcy in 1995. Cray’s struggles would give way to a changing of the guard of sorts as competing Japanese computing systems would come to dominate the field for much of the decade. Tokyo-based NEC Corporation first came onto the scene in 1989 with the SX-3 and a year later unveiled a four-processor version that took over as the world’s fastest computer, only to be eclipsed in 1993. That year, Fujitsu’s Numerical Wind Tunnel, with the brute force of 166 vector processors became the first supercomputer to surpass 100 gigaflops (Side note: To give you an idea of how rapidly the technology advances, the fastest consumer processors in 2016 can easily do more than 100 gigaflops, but at the time, it was particularly impressive). In 1996, the Hitachi SR2201 upped the ante with 2048 processors to reach a peak performance of 600 gigaflops. Intel Joins the Race Now, where was Intel? The company that had established itself as the consumer market’s leading chipmaker didn’t really make a splash in the realm of supercomputing until towards the end of the century. This was because the technologies were altogether very different animals. Supercomputers, for instance, were designed to jam in as much processing power as possible while personal computers were all about squeezing efficiency from minimal cooling capabilities and limited energy supply. So in 1993 Intel engineers finally took the plunge by taking the bold approach of going massively parallel with the 3,680 processor Intel XP/S 140 Paragon, which by June of 1994 had climbed to the summit of the supercomputer rankings. It was the first massively parallel processor supercomputer to be indisputably the fastest system in the world.   Up to this point, supercomputing has been mainly the domain of those with the kind of deep pockets to fund such ambitious projects. That all changed in 1994 when contractors at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center, who didn’t have that kind of luxury, came up with a clever way to harness the power of parallel computing by linking and configuring a series of personal computers using an ethernet network. The â€Å"Beowulf cluster† system they developed was comprised of 16 486DX processors, capable of operating in the gigaflops range and cost less than $50,000 to build. It also had the distinction of running Linux rather than Unix before the Linux became the operating systems of choice for supercomputers. Pretty soon, do-it-yourselfers everywhere were followed similar blueprints to set up their own Beowulf clusters.  Ã‚   After relinquishing the title in 1996 to the Hitachi SR2201, Intel came back that year with a design based on the Paragon called ASCI Red, which was comprised of more than 6,000 200MHz Pentium Pro processors. Despite moving away from vector processors in favor of off-the-shelf components, the ASCI Red gained the distinction of being the first computer to break the one trillion flops barrier (1 teraflops). By 1999, upgrades enabled it to surpass three trillion flops (3 teraflops). The ASCI Red was installed at Sandia National Laboratories and was used primarily to simulate nuclear explosions and assist in the maintenance of the country’s nuclear arsenal. After Japan retook the supercomputing lead for a period with the 35.9 teraflops NEC Earth Simulator, IBM brought supercomputing to unprecedented heights starting in 2004 with the Blue Gene/L. That year, IBM debuted a prototype that just barely edged the Earth Simulator (36 teraflops). And by 2007, engineers would ramp up the hardware to push its processing capability to a peak of nearly 600 teraflops. Interestingly, the team was able to reach such speeds by going with the approach of using more chips that were relatively low power, but more energy efficient. In 2008, IBM broke ground again when it switched on the Roadrunner, the first supercomputer to exceed one quadrillion floating point operations per second (1 petaflops).

The golden party- Kathrine mansfield and Veblen Thesis

The golden party- Kathrine mansfield and Veblen - Thesis Example On the other hand, the theory of the leisure class by Veblen explains the various situations that result from creations of social classes. A comparison of the two pieces of literature sheds more light on the existence of social classes in the society. In his theory Veblen observed that in most communities, people who own huge amount of property are deemed to be more popular and successful in the society. This perception prompts a lot of people to use any means to acquire property that may be perceived as wealth since the poor are looked down upon (Veblen, 24). However, acquisition of wealth is not enough to enable one to be regarded highly in the community. It is therefore necessary for the wealthy in the community do display their wealth. In this case the display of wealth is mainly exhibited through leisure activities. Hence the rich people in the society have to distinguish themselves from the not so wealthy people by living contrary to the poor people who live in â€Å"vulgar surroundings† (Veblen, 29).In this case, vulgar surrounding involved inexpensive lifestyles hence the wealthy have to be different from the poor and live lavishly even if it meant wastage. Veblen’s theory could be well represented in the st ory the garden party by Katherine Mansfield. The short story is a fictional account of a wealthy family that was preparing to hold a party in an upper class environment. In the party, Mrs. Sheridan delegates the duties of organizing the party to her daughters and the employees. However, despite one of her daughters Laura having budgeted for the party, Mrs. Sheridan could not resist to Pass by a shop and buy flowers that were not needed at the party (Mansfield, 66).This made Laura to realize a lot of extravagance in the party .On the other hand, before the party commenced their neighbor from a low class society passed away. Laura tried to convince her sister Jose and her mother to stop the party after their neighbor passed away

Geneva Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Geneva - Assignment Example In adition to this, it was a center of governance and thus received fame just like the Duchy of Savoy was ruled by the Savoy family (Early, 2015). The reformers won the hearts of the people by convincing them that all human beings had fallen and were sinful. They also conducted constant preaching of the gospel to make people believe and understand the message they conveyed to the public (Early, 2015). The doctrine of predestination was taught in Calvinism and refers to Gods control of the universe and what happen in it. It states that God freely and unchangeably purposes whatever happens in the society There were 13000 people living in Geneva during Calvin’s theocratic rule. The Catholics wanted to crash and destroy the city to destroy protestant churches which were heightening competition for followers. This would have helped them to end rivalry for followers (Early, 2015). Geneva was well fortified and thus formed a formidable war machine. It had high walls and controlled gates, which could be very helpful during a war, attack. The Magnin relief could also be very helpful during a war crisis and could help in controlling attackers from entering the city (Early, 2015). The Escalade is the annual festival celebrated in Genera for the victory over Savoyard soldiers who attacked Geneva in December 1602 and wanted to make it their capital city. The Duke of Savoy wanted to take possession of the city (Early, 2015). The main characters that made the Geneva people to be strong in character is the strong belief in their religion. They also had prominent scholars who inspired them and made then have unwavering faith in God and their religion. In addition to this, their scholars were able to interpret the scriptures thus making them understand them better (Early, 2015). Calvinism shaped a society that believed in total depravity because the whole of human kind is sinful. They also believed in unconditional election because

Aristotle Response Paper Essay Example for Free

Aristotle Response Paper Essay Aristotle presents the element of tragedy as more then the textbook definition; an event resulting in great loss and misfortune, but describes how it is an art that can enhance all types of poetry. He defines tragedy as being an imitation of an action that is a whole and complete in itself and of a certain extent. Aristotle shows how tragedy is actually more important than the history itself because it brings out people’s emotions, instead of simply presenting the facts. It is clearly stated throughout the essay that plot is key to good poetry and outweighs every other element. Step by step, Aristotle explains the importance of 6 main necessary elements of plot, character, verbal expression, thought, visual, and song composition. Aristotle states that poetry must target the emotions of pity or fear, which is created in the audience, as they see the tragedy of a character that suffers unfairly, but is not completely innocent. Then he moves on to describing the main elements of tragedy, which include, plot, character, language, thought, visual, and melody. Then he classifies these in three parts, the media, the manner and the objects. The verbal communication and song composition, constitute the media, in which they effect the replication. Then there is the display, which is the manner, and the remaining three, the plot, character and thought are the objects that are imitated. Aristotle considers the plot to be the most important of these elements. He describes the plot as not being a unity revolving around one man. Instead, he states that many things happen to one man, which may not always go together, to form a unity. At the same time, he says that among the actions that a character performs there are many that may be irrelevant to one another, but yet they form a unified action. Aristotle continues depicting the plot categorizing it in two manners: simple and complex. In a simple plot, a change of fortune takes place without a reversal or recognition. In contrast, in a complex plot, the change of fortune involves recognition or a reversal or both. He then defines reversal and recognition. Reversal or peripety is a change from one circumstance to its exact opposite. Recognition is a change from ignorance to knowledge leading either to friendship or hostility depending on whether the character is marked with good or bad fortune. There is a phrase used by Aristotle in Poetics, â€Å"from the machine,† which is basically any unlikely way of solving difficulty of the plot. Lastly, Aristotle explains the importance of the chorus in a tragedy. According to him, it should be regarded as one of the actors. Therefore, the chorus should be integrated into performance and be considered as part of the whole. Aristotle is correct in his importance of plot, but the characters are of equal importance. If the audience can connect with the characters on a personal level, then they are much more attached and emotionally involved with the story. Also the more information that is given about the characters, the more the audience gets an understanding as to why the story is playing out like it is.

Essay --

In this research paper we will introduce both cases that are related to the males that who are being harassed by females in the workplace. Complaints by men of women harassing them are much fewer because that men who feel powerless or fear for their job security. Case I: The Regal Entertainment Group is to pay $175,000 and other remedial relief to a sex charge discrimination lawsuit brought by the U.S Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The firm was accused with subjecting a male employee to sexual harassment. The company was later to act against him and the supervisor who had tried to intervene. The EEOC had alleged that a male employee at the Regal theater had been subjected to a sexually hostile environment by a female co-worker who repeatedly grabbed his crotch. The EEOC alleged that when the then-general manager was informed of the incident by the supervisor she retaliated and failed to take the necessary measures to prevent or stop the harassment. It was held that sexual harassment and retaliation for complaining violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act 1964. Be...

Christian and Wiccan beliefs Essay

Two miles south of where Mary Anne lived, I encountered Sheila, a 36 year old self-professed astrology and tarot card reader working part-time for a local pharmacy. My initial data revealed that Sheila belonged to the Wiccan Rede principle which is currently considered radical among traditional Wiccan groups. Fortunately, Sheila was at home on her day-off and was talking animatedly with a client in her front porch. While waiting for her client to leave, I was allowed to wander around her house which was surrounded by huge trees making her home look gloomy. After a few minutes, I was ushered in and Sheila welcomed me graciously knowing full well about my intentions. She began by explaining how their group had grown lesser over the years as the other wiccan practitioners complained on the religious incorporation of Christian and Wiccan beliefs. Sheila added that the element of Wicca which includes fertility and reincarnation is incorporated in the key points of the divinity of Jehovah, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit as retained from Christianity that was also quoted in Guiley (1999). According to her, the combination of two religions, which was traditionally at odds with one another, is frequently criticized by members of other wiccan sects. For her, there is no other One God as the greatest and the Lord of all and that the Earth is the Goddess of common Wicca. She has equated the Holy Spirit as a Feminine deity that may be regarded as the Great Mother Goddess similar to the Christian thought. With this in mind, she showed me a picture of the Madonna and Child and claimed that the Holy Spirit is actually embodied in the Virgin Mary. Their small liberalized group was initiated by the BTW or the British Traditional Witchcraft coven. They were widely criticized according to her because many Wiccan practitioners consider Christianity to be incompatible with the pagan philosophy. She added that the merging of Christian and pagan beliefs was considered a lambaste to the Wiccan religion since the Christian faith is male-dominated and an insufficient acceptance of true Wiccan belief. She explained that Wicca, as a ditheistic religion may contain a male god and female goddess giving equal emphasis to the aspects of both divine beings. Admittedly, she said that the principal tenets of Christian Wicca elevate the status of a God which altogether makes it different as there is no equality between the male and female according to Guiley (1999). In the elements of nature symbolically represented by different objects, the Christian wicca believes in the instance of crystals and stones as objects for the element earth, and seashells for the water element in Salomonsen (2002). Sheila added that their group also worships and observes the eight sabbats of the year and the full moon. Most of the practitioners in their group may practice in solitaries but do attend gatherings and other community events but reserve other rituals when they are alone. Their initiation into a coven begins with a one-year study before the actual initiation that spins a religious dedication. She related her initial experience at the thrill of being able to join the coven six years ago which had been a long time dream for her. She had already ventured in yoga and Asian Buddhism before finally exploring the Christian wicca. Sheila unlike Mary Ann does not want to show me her altar and her wares but pointed out a small hut beside the family house as her â€Å"solitary camp† to prevent family members from disturbing her. For Sheila, wicca should not be mistaken for witchcraft as they are simply a religion with ethical standards to live by.

Congratulations You Have Been Accepted To College. These

Congratulations you have been accepted to college. These seven words can have a huge impact and change the future for someone. However this change can have a horrendous impact with the direction a person’s life can turn out. College is supposed to be the greatest time filled with lasting memories, memorable relationships, and a time when a recent high school graduate can prepare for a successful future. First steps are made to making dreams and aspirations come true, with a brief realization that anything is possible. Alternatively for some dreams turn into nightmares and those aspirations will come tumbling down. In the documentary â€Å"The Hunting Ground† negative aspects influenced the types of memories that were made and relationships†¦show more content†¦Until students from University of Carolina began doing research after becoming victims of rape it was common for the female to get blamed for the occurrence. In the horrific aftermath of their assaults, the victims described symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, including nightmares. One if the girls were so vivid that she would wake up bleeding stating that she was scratching her invisible rapist away from her neck. Also the victims would suffer from panic attacks, attempted suicide, and self-harm. Desperation over the severity of symptoms some of the girls delegated to go seek university administrators. The response they received from an array of administrators was overwhelmingly crude. â€Å"Rape is like a football game,† a UNC administrator told one girl. â€Å"If you look back on the game, what would yo u do differently?† Such inquisition seems the norm: â€Å"What were you wearing? Were you drinking? How much did you pregame? Did you say no? How many times did you say no?† Another girl was asked. On the other hand the rapist got a pat on the back and may have had a bad day that day and it should just be understood. One student upon being interviewed stated that â€Å"Just because you say no and you have sex are you a rapist?† The ignorance among the students, faculty, and other personnel in this documentary was astonishing. Having the belief that keeping things hushed is best for the university soShow MoreRelatedGraduation Speech : College And University Of Your Choosing920 Words   |  4 PagesCongratulations, you have just been accepted into the college or university of your choosing. The last six months, a time well spent perfecting your college entrance essays have paid off. The unexpected bliss of deciding your major, and knowing all of your schooling this far has lead you to this monumental milestone in your life. 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