eugene@ames.UUCP (Eugene Miya) (08/03/84)
[] The problem right now: in addition to the task decomposition problem mentioned by others [Using many micros to replace a super computer], is the shear number of micros needed. Yes, right now supercomputers are more cost effect, I am having the privilege of running a Cray-X 12 under a shaky S-V. The people at LLNL say a Cray-1 is equivalent to about 280x a 780 VAXen. This figure is certainly disputable (problem dependent), other say 90x a 780. How many 8086s equal a Cray? Now, we also have a Cray XMP 28, its is only a little bigger, but we practically doubled the power. You can certainly counter than micros will be cost effective soon. I have a reject chip from the Massively Parallel Processor with has 8 micros on it. The MPP has 16,000 processors (rounded), and programming it is a problem. On the software decomposition problem: not much work has been done to distribute [either explicitly or implicitly] programming. Many argue that running Unix on a Cray is a waste of cycles due to keystroke interrupts and the like. Okay. Then these people propose either a batch oriented or a process server oriented model. Well, I have batch using the Cray with COS and RJE. I have to learn COS, a step back into the stone ages. No one has really created an integrated model of process servers in a "high" performance environment. I know about RIG and PARC's work as well as others. LLNL is trying a system called LINCS/NLTSS, but FORTRAN still represents a problem--> programming for the workstation or the super computer. We need distributed programming of utilities like editors and debuggers with treat the net as a distributed whole and not a workstation and a process server. --eugene miya NASA Ames Res. Ctr. emiya@ames-vmsb.ARPA {hplabs,hao,dual}!ames!aurora!eugene