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From: eugene@pioneer.arpa (Eugene Miya N.)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Hypercubes (place in life)
Message-ID: <816@ames.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 18-Mar-87 14:28:55 EST
Article-I.D.: ames.816
Posted: Wed Mar 18 14:28:55 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 20-Mar-87 01:21:16 EST
References: <362@ames.UUCP> <3810018@nucsrl.UUCP> <1150@encore.UUCP>
Sender: usenet@ames.UUCP
Reply-To: eugene@pioneer.UUCP (Eugene Miya N.)
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
Lines: 44

In article <1150@encore.UUCP> fay@encore.UUCP (Peter Fay) writes:
>In article <3810018@nucsrl.UUCP> ram@nucsrl.UUCP (Raman Renu) writes:
>>
>> Fay wrote:
>>
>>>The cost benefits are incredible when one realizes that these programs
>>>actually get better turn-around time on a $12,000 hypercube than a
>>				                  ^
>>						  +- where did a '0' go.
>
>I wasn't refering to Intel's hypercube.

I thought you were refering to a 4 node cube.  In fact I saw John
Palmer's 4 node system when he brought it last year to COMPCON.
Speedups of 4 over micro processors, even 16 over micros are dumb.  You
want speed ups of hundreds of times to compete with larger mainframes
class CPUs which have much faster busses for I/O.

>My only 'real' comparison of cubes was at the ICPP conference
>last summer, viewing both the Intel and Ncube running the same 
>Mandelbrot program (what else? ). The Ncube was (very roughly) ten times
>faster. The Intel people explained this by saying their machine was
>still 'experimental', while Ncube's was a commercial product.
>
>Maybe that's why Ncube's is being used in commercial applications.
>			- peter fay

What "commercial" application is running on a Cube? Any?  I am under the
	send mail when answering this, don't clutter the net
impression (from the Cube conferences) that we are all dealing with
reduced (read toy) problems.  I don't know of a scientist anywhere
running "production code," including Caltech.  Code development sure and
other experiments.  That's quite an investment of a scientists time
to write something which does not have a guarantee that a line of
machines is going to continue (like writing HEP applications).

From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

--eugene miya
  NASA Ames Research Center
  eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."
  {hplabs,hao,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix,menlo70}!ames!aurora!eugene