Re: Computer speed

[Vincent Archer <Vincent.Archer@xxxxxx>]

On Sat, Dec 05, 1998 at 04:03:21PM -0500, Compgo123@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> I recently cross over an article in a magzine that mentioned a little about
> super computers. It throw in some names like Cray T3E, IBM RS/6000SP, etc.
> Does anyone care to make some comment about today's (and in next 10 years)
> state of the art super computers? How do they compare with a Pentium 450 MHz?
> For computer Go, I guess the integer operation is more important. Thanks.

The main thing that distinguish a super-computer from a "normal", run-of-the
mill, almost-desktop one is parrallelism. Most "mainframes" are basically
standard computers, with a good CPU, lots and lots of instructions optimised
for data management - what they were built for, while "supercomputers" have
typically from 256 to 2^N, where N is way too large, arithmetical and
floating point units in parallel. When you have large computations to do,
and can have the same formula done to lots of data at the same time, they
are at their best. A supercomputer, for example, is an excellent neural net
emulator.

-- 
Vincent ARCHER  -=-=-  Herve Schauer Consultants -=-=-   archer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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