Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!csinc!rpeglar
From: rpeglar@csinc.UUCP (Rob Peglar x615)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: ATTACK OF KILLER MICROS
Summary: More ramblings.
Message-ID: <127@csinc.UUCP>
Date: 16 Oct 89 14:39:36 GMT
References: <35825@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV>
Organization: Control Systems, Inc., St. Paul MN
Lines: 51

In article <35825@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV>, brooks@maddog.llnl.gov writes:
> mash@mips.com pointed out some important considerations in the issue of whether
> supercomputers as we know them will survive.  I thought that I would attempt
> to get a discussion started.  Here is a simple fact for the mill, related to
> the question of whether or not machines delivering the fastest performance
> at any price have room in the market.
> 
> Fact number 1:
> The best of the microprocessors now EXCEED supercomputers for scalar
> performance and the performance of microprocessors is not yet stagnant.
> On scalar codes, commodity microprocessors ARE the fastest machines at
> any price and custom cpu architectures are doomed in this market.
> 
> brooks@maddog.llnl.gov, brooks@maddog.uucp

Brooks is making a good point here.  By "this market", I assume he means
the one defined above, (as well as by mash) - to paraphrase, "the fastest
box at any price".  I'll let go what "fastest" and "box" mean for sake
of easy discussion  :-)  Most of us, I hope, can fathom what price is.

Anyway, I agree with mash that there is - albeit small - a
market for the machine with the highest peak absolute performance 
(pick your number, the most popular one recently seems to be Linpack
100x100 all Fortran, Dongarra's Table One).  The national labs have proven
that point for almost a generation.  I believe that it will take at least
one more generation - those who weaned on machines from CDC, then CRI -
before a more reasonable approach to machine procurement comes to pass.
Thus, I disagree that there will *always* be a market for this sort of
thing.  Status symbols may be OK in cars, but for machines purchased with
taxpayer dollars, the end is near.  Hence, Brooks' "attack of the killer
micros".


However, I do believe that there will always be a market for various
types of processors and processor architectures.  Killer scalar micros
are finding wide favor as above.  Vector supers and their offspring, e.g.
the i860 and other 64-bit things, will always dominate codes which can
be easily vectorized and do not lend themselves well to parallel computation.
Medium-scale OTS-technology machines like Sequent will start (are starting)
to dominate OLTP and RDBMS work, perfect tasks for symmetric MP machines.
(Pyramid, too; hi Chris).  Massive parallel machines will eventually
settle into production shops, perhaps running one and only one application,
but running it at speeds that boggle the mind.

It's up to the manufacturers to decide 1) which game they want to play
2) for what stakes  3) with what competition  4) for how long  5) etc.
etc.etc.  That's what makes working for a manufacturer such fun and
terror at once.

Rob
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