Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: Notesfiles; site uiuccsb.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!uiucdcs!uiuccsb!jackson
From: jackson@uiuccsb.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.arch
Subject: Re: lets talk supercomputer micro-archit - (nf)
Message-ID: <5600015@uiuccsb.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 30-Apr-84 22:20:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: uiuccsb.5600015
Posted: Mon Apr 30 22:20:00 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 3-May-84 20:09:17 EDT
References: <255@houxk.UUCP>
Lines: 33
Nf-ID: #R:houxk:-25500:uiuccsb:5600015:000:1127
Nf-From: uiuccsb!jackson    Apr 30 21:20:00 1984

#R:houxk:-25500:uiuccsb:5600015:000:1127
uiuccsb!jackson    Apr 30 21:20:00 1984

/**** uiuccsb:net.arch / houxk!rdt /  6:21 pm  Apr 29, 1984 ****/
several publications have claimed hat the japanese have caught up
and in some cases exceeded cray-2 level performance. it seems to me 
that the only way that this could have happened to their american
counterparts is that 

	1. we took them for granted.
	2. we are losing a technology driven race. (GaAs vs. Si.)
	3. we are running out of hardware speedup techniques.

richard trauben
/* ---------- */


You seem to have forgotten one major technique of speeding up programs.
That is through the use of program restructurers, the way many vectorizers
and vectorizing compilers work.

Although Fujitsu's VP200 has a lower peak MEGAFLOP rate than the CRAY-XMP,
on the benchmarks that I've heard about the VP200 out performs the CRAY
because of the superior vectorizing compiler Fujitsu has.  That is,
Cray has faster hardware than the Fujitsu, but the Fujitsu has superior
software to overcome the slower hardware -- thus a faster machine for the
user.


Dan Jackson

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
UUCP:    {pur-ee | ihnp4}!uiucdcs!uiuccsb!jackson