eugene@eos.UUCP (Eugene Miya) (06/10/89)
In article <26694@ames.arc.nasa.gov> lamaster@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Hugh LaMaster) writes: >In article <758@loligo.cc.fsu.edu> mccalpin@loligo.cc.fsu.edu (John McCalpin) writes: >>Some reasons for a front-end machine: > >>(1) Cray MIPS are definitely not cheap, and it is difficult to >> convince users not to run inefficient or inappropriate codes >> on the back end. [Nor memory nor disk, nor... ] > >This is debatable. It is not clear that the applications you may be >worried about (editors are a typical worry) use any significant amount My newsrc file gets corrupted and I find an old one but I haven't removed comp.arch. So you guys are still debating this eh? No one solve the distributed programming difficulty problem yet? No one says you have to buy a Cray. No one says you "have" to use interactive computing, editing on Crays, etc. I would never like to work at such a site, personally, I think LLNL and LANL from the 60s, did it right. I personally like running fast editors on big data files (100 MB) and graphics to find errors, etc. I can solve problems faster. Sure, we have some money. Lots of places do. One day personal computers will have computing power exceeding today's highest end machines. Any one can solve the greatest problems of the world using personal computers, it just takes a bit longer and you have to think of smarter ways of doing the storage. Sure, some machines are better tuned for problems than others. But most machines are all SISD, too. What counts? Cycles or solutions to problems? Who cares about inefficient solutions except managers? The first inefficient solution is okay. It's the subsequent adoption of inefficient solutions which is the problem. Ah forget it. It's just all marketing (goto: alt.sex.bondage). The only thing I ask: Just stop using the the prefix "super" like in supercomputer, superscalar, superconductor, superman, (and watch out for hyper and ultra, too. 8). Now, I can unsubscribe again. 8) Another gross generalization from --eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers: "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?" "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology." {ncar,decwrl,hplabs,uunet}!ames!eugene Let them punch cards.