ORNL SuperComputer

[Cammmpbell]

This is presently Oak Ridge's fastest computer. I was computer operations supervisor in Oak Ridge's largest mainframe computing center for the last 25 of my 41 years with a prime contractor for the DOE. Our Center installed Oak Ridge's first supercomputer
in 1985...the Cray XMP2 4

This is the Jaguar...it is presently being upgraded:

What it's like to play with the Jaguar supercomputer - Nov. 14, 2011

 

[Old Rocks]

Whee, what a toy.

 

[Mr. H.]

But, how is it at playing Jeopardy?

 

[Cammmpbell]

But, how is it at playing Jeopardy?

I know it's good at chess

 

[Mr. H.]

I took a visitor's tour of ORNL in the early 80's.
Don't remember a whole lot.

 

[Cammmpbell]

I took a visitor's tour of ORNL in the early 80's.
Don't remember a whole lot.

A young employee from our old center set up a pass and visitor's information and spent four hours of his day touring me through the place. The technology has changed so much since I retired in 1993 that it's difficult to comprehend.

 

[Mr. H.]

hm. So you were working there when I had the tour? small world.
There was a display with two mechanical arm things that you manipulated with your hands.
Behind the glass was a bunch of toy wooden blocks. I started stacking them up when I noticed the tour guy quit talking. I looked over, and there was the guide and the tour group staring with their mouths open. I had about 12 of those blocks perfectly stacked LOL.
Anyhow- just a fun memory.

 

[Cammmpbell]

hm. So you were working there when I had the tour? small world.
There was a display with two mechanical arm things that you manipulated with your hands.
Behind the glass was a bunch of toy wooden blocks. I started stacking them up when I noticed the tour guy quit talking. I looked over, and there was the guide and the tour group staring with their mouths open. I had about 12 of those blocks perfectly stacked LOL.
Anyhow- just a fun memory.

You're right about this being a small world.

Actually you were at the National Laboratory. At that time there were three computing centers in Oak Ridge, (X-10) the national laboratory, (Y-12) the nuclear weapons facility and (K-25) the uranium processing facility and centrifuge development center. I was at K-25 for the entire 41 years of my career and in the computing center for 33 of those...computer operations supervisor for the final 25. I retired in 1993.

The centrifuge development project financed Oak Ridge's first supercomputer, the CRAY XMP 24 and the capabilities it had in 1985 were trivial when compared to the super fast computers of today. The project took 14 months in planning and cost $11.8 million. That was a lot to pay for a processor in those days. It had two 250HP motor generator sets which did nothing but convert 60 cycle power to 120 cycle to provide a more stable DC voltage for the main processor. We had to install a special 13.8KV load center for the additional power requirement and about 40 tons of refrigeration for it's cooling demands.

In 1991 we paid a salvage company $1,000 to load the thing on a truck and haul it away. Of course they were doing it to reclaim the precious metals from the circuit boards and cables.

Click this address and it should show you a typical operations site of an installed XMP24. Of course one cannot see but a fraction of the total system, i.e. disk drives, tapes, plotters and other ancillaries such as power load center, cooling etc.

http://www.google.com/imgres?q=cray...tart=0&ndsp=25&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0&tx=35&ty=59

 

[waltky]

Optical diode the wave of the future for computers?...

More Powerful Supercomputers? New Device Could Bring Optical Information Processing
Dec. 22, 2011 — Researchers have created a new type of optical device small enough to fit millions on a computer chip that could lead to faster, more powerful information processing and supercomputers.

The "passive optical diode" is made from two tiny silicon rings measuring 10 microns in diameter, or about one-tenth the width of a human hair. Unlike other optical diodes, it does not require external assistance to transmit signals and can be readily integrated into computer chips. The diode is capable of "nonreciprocal transmission," meaning it transmits signals in only one direction, making it capable of information processing, said Minghao Qi (pronounced Chee), an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue University. "This one-way transmission is the most fundamental part of a logic circuit, so our diodes open the door to optical information processing," said Qi, working with a team also led by Andrew Weiner, Purdue's Scifres Family Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

The diodes are described in a paper to be published online Dec. 22 in the journal Science. The paper was written by graduate students Li Fan, Jian Wang, Leo Varghese, Hao Shen and Ben Niu, research associate Yi Xuan, and Weiner and Qi. Although fiberoptic cables are instrumental in transmitting large quantities of data across oceans and continents, information processing is slowed and the data are susceptible to cyberattack when optical signals must be translated into electronic signals for use in computers, and vice versa. "This translation requires expensive equipment," Wang said. "What you'd rather be able to do is plug the fiber directly into computers with no translation needed, and then you get a lot of bandwidth and security."

Electronic diodes constitute critical junctions in transistors and help enable integrated circuits to switch on and off and to process information. The new optical diodes are compatible with industry manufacturing processes for complementary metal-oxide-semiconductors, or CMOS, used to produce computer chips, Fan said. "These diodes are very compact, and they have other attributes that make them attractive as a potential component for future photonic information processing chips," she said. The new optical diodes could make for faster and more secure information processing by eliminating the need for this translation. The devices, which are nearly ready for commercialization, also could lead to faster, more powerful supercomputers by using them to connect numerous processors together.

"The major factor limiting supercomputers today is the speed and bandwidth of communication between the individual superchips in the system," Varghese said. "Our optical diode may be a component in optical interconnect systems that could eliminate such a bottleneck." Infrared light from a laser at telecommunication wavelength goes through an optical fiber and is guided by a microstructure called a waveguide. It then passes sequentially through two silicon rings and undergoes "nonlinear interaction" while inside the tiny rings. Depending on which ring the light enters first, it will either pass in the forward direction or be dissipated in the backward direction, making for one-way transmission. The rings can be tuned by heating them using a "microheater," which changes the wavelengths at which they transmit, making it possible to handle a broad frequency range.

More powerful supercomputers? New device could bring optical information processing

 

[AnonymousIV]

also a super computer at the University of Kentucky @ Lexington

 

[Mr. H.]

Some day, super computers will be the size of an iPad.

You heard it here first, folks.

 

[Old Rocks]

My Maternal grandfather was a major influence in my life. He had an active intellect and an interest in all things. When they landed on the moon, my cousin was watching it with Grandpa, and Grandpa was describing the various systems on the lander. My Cousin, an FAA tech, was surprised at the depth of his knowledge, and said as much. Grandpa looked and him and laughed. He said " Paul, I was 16 when the Wright Bros flew the first airplane, now I am watching men land on the moon. This is just about the biggest thing that has happened in my lifetime!".

I now feel the same way conderning the computers. I was five when the work on the semiconductors was done that led to the transistor, and made real computers possible. Today, they are doing things with the computers not even imagined then. And the Net has changed the world, and is still changing the world, in a way unimaginable only 40 years ago.

I would really like to make the century mark, or more, just to see where we go with this, and what the next paradigm changing technology will be.

 

[Cammmpbell]

My Maternal grandfather was a major influence in my life. He had an active intellect and an interest in all things. When they landed on the moon, my cousin was watching it with Grandpa, and Grandpa was describing the various systems on the lander. My Cousin, an FAA tech, was surprised at the depth of his knowledge, and said as much. Grandpa looked and him and laughed. He said " Paul, I was 16 when the Wright Bros flew the first airplane, now I am watching men land on the moon. This is just about the biggest thing that has happened in my lifetime!".

I now feel the same way conderning the computers. I was five when the work on the semiconductors was done that led to the transistor, and made real computers possible. Today, they are doing things with the computers not even imagined then. And the Net has changed the world, and is still changing the world, in a way unimaginable only 40 years ago.

I would really like to make the century mark, or more, just to see where we go with this, and what the next paradigm changing technology will be.

In 1979 my son was a sophomore in high school. For his b'day I bought him an Atari 800 with a 12K RAM expansion board....total 48K. I asked him to learn everything in the owner's manual. Within six months he was checking out material from the Oak Ridge public library. His junior and senior years in high school he devoted to the most advanced courses they offered and when he started college at Case in Cleveland, OH was awarded three credits for advanced work already completed. He finished at Case and immediately entered VPI where he earned a masters in systems engineering. Since 1988 he has changed jobs seven times, once a rocket scientists for two years involved in the SDI work and is currently in charge of software architecture for a large contractor in the Atlanta area. That first little computer obviously inspired him.

About making it to 100.......about 80% of folks who live to 100 end up in diapers and dependent upon others. I hope I just go ahead and drop before those years. At 77 I've seen a lot and will settle for that.

 

[JimBowie1958]

Some day, super computers will be the size of an iPad.

You heard it here first, folks.

From what I understand, todays Iphones have more computational power than the super computers of the late 70's, so it would seem that you are already correct.

 

[Cammmpbell]

Some day, super computers will be the size of an iPad.

You heard it here first, folks.

From what I understand, todays Iphones have more computational power than the super computers of the late 70's, so it would seem that you are already correct.

You can go ahead and make that late 80's. Before I retired in 1993 I purposefully counted all the disk storage we had in one of the largest computing centers in the SE United States. There was about 12gb of storage. We had $66 million worth of computing and telecommunications equipment installed on 18,000 sq. ft. of floating floor space. It required about 400 tons of refrigeration to cool it and our annual power bill was in excess of half a million dollars. Now I have a flash drive on a key chain which has 32gb of storage. I have backup for all files from a three PC network stored on it.

 

[Mr. H.]

Wow.
BTW what's "floating floor space" mean?

 

[Cammmpbell]

Wow.
BTW what's "floating floor space" mean?

All electrical and bus and tag cables which carried signals from controllers to processors etc. plus the room cooling was run in a two foot high area beneath all the machines and systems. Centers had a solid concrete floor but also accomodated standards on 2' X 2' center and thick metal tiles were placed and joined on those standards forming a floating floor. Once way back in the early 1970's we were repositioning an IBM 360 model 2050 to make room for the installation of an IBM 360 model 2065 and while everyone was working and not paying enough attention we reali ed we had formed an island near the middle of the room and almost panicked until we could place some support back to the walls of the room.

Look closely at the tiles in this room. Any one of these can be picked up with a special handle with suction cups and work can be done beneath the visible floor. Check the tiles with vents because that's the way the room's cooling is accomplished:

Here is another Cray...note the 2X2 tiles:

 

[Old Rocks]

My Maternal grandfather was a major influence in my life. He had an active intellect and an interest in all things. When they landed on the moon, my cousin was watching it with Grandpa, and Grandpa was describing the various systems on the lander. My Cousin, an FAA tech, was surprised at the depth of his knowledge, and said as much. Grandpa looked and him and laughed. He said " Paul, I was 16 when the Wright Bros flew the first airplane, now I am watching men land on the moon. This is just about the biggest thing that has happened in my lifetime!".

I now feel the same way conderning the computers. I was five when the work on the semiconductors was done that led to the transistor, and made real computers possible. Today, they are doing things with the computers not even imagined then. And the Net has changed the world, and is still changing the world, in a way unimaginable only 40 years ago.

I would really like to make the century mark, or more, just to see where we go with this, and what the next paradigm changing technology will be.

In 1979 my son was a sophomore in high school. For his b'day I bought him an Atari 800 with a 12K RAM expansion board....total 48K. I asked him to learn everything in the owner's manual. Within six months he was checking out material from the Oak Ridge public library. His junior and senior years in high school he devoted to the most advanced courses they offered and when he started college at Case in Cleveland, OH was awarded three credits for advanced work already completed. He finished at Case and immediately entered VPI where he earned a masters in systems engineering. Since 1988 he has changed jobs seven times, once a rocket scientists for two years involved in the SDI work and is currently in charge of software architecture for a large contractor in the Atlanta area. That first little computer obviously inspired him.

About making it to 100.......about 80% of folks who live to 100 end up in diapers and dependent upon others. I hope I just go ahead and drop before those years. At 77 I've seen a lot and will settle for that.

I have seen some of that. Then one of my great-grandmothers lived to 103. She finally just fell over working in her garden. That is kind of like I would like to go. In the garden or out hunting rocks.

 

[Cammmpbell]

My Maternal grandfather was a major influence in my life. He had an active intellect and an interest in all things. When they landed on the moon, my cousin was watching it with Grandpa, and Grandpa was describing the various systems on the lander. My Cousin, an FAA tech, was surprised at the depth of his knowledge, and said as much. Grandpa looked and him and laughed. He said " Paul, I was 16 when the Wright Bros flew the first airplane, now I am watching men land on the moon. This is just about the biggest thing that has happened in my lifetime!".

I now feel the same way conderning the computers. I was five when the work on the semiconductors was done that led to the transistor, and made real computers possible. Today, they are doing things with the computers not even imagined then. And the Net has changed the world, and is still changing the world, in a way unimaginable only 40 years ago.

I would really like to make the century mark, or more, just to see where we go with this, and what the next paradigm changing technology will be.

In 1979 my son was a sophomore in high school. For his b'day I bought him an Atari 800 with a 12K RAM expansion board....total 48K. I asked him to learn everything in the owner's manual. Within six months he was checking out material from the Oak Ridge public library. His junior and senior years in high school he devoted to the most advanced courses they offered and when he started college at Case in Cleveland, OH was awarded three credits for advanced work already completed. He finished at Case and immediately entered VPI where he earned a masters in systems engineering. Since 1988 he has changed jobs seven times, once a rocket scientists for two years involved in the SDI work and is currently in charge of software architecture for a large contractor in the Atlanta area. That first little computer obviously inspired him.

About making it to 100.......about 80% of folks who live to 100 end up in diapers and dependent upon others. I hope I just go ahead and drop before those years. At 77 I've seen a lot and will settle for that.

I have seen some of that. Then one of my great-grandmothers lived to 103. She finally just fell over working in her garden. That is kind of like I would like to go. In the garden or out hunting rocks.

Yes.....if one is fortunate enough to fall within the 20% but 4 to 1 odds aren't all that great. When one considers even odds being a flip of the coin.....4 to 1 sucks. I can do a lot better than that in Las Vegas.

 

[JimBowie1958]

My Maternal grandfather was a major influence in my life. He had an active intellect and an interest in all things. When they landed on the moon, my cousin was watching it with Grandpa, and Grandpa was describing the various systems on the lander. My Cousin, an FAA tech, was surprised at the depth of his knowledge, and said as much. Grandpa looked and him and laughed. He said " Paul, I was 16 when the Wright Bros flew the first airplane, now I am watching men land on the moon. This is just about the biggest thing that has happened in my lifetime!".

I now feel the same way conderning the computers. I was five when the work on the semiconductors was done that led to the transistor, and made real computers possible. Today, they are doing things with the computers not even imagined then. And the Net has changed the world, and is still changing the world, in a way unimaginable only 40 years ago.

I would really like to make the century mark, or more, just to see where we go with this, and what the next paradigm changing technology will be.

In 1979 my son was a sophomore in high school. For his b'day I bought him an Atari 800 with a 12K RAM expansion board....total 48K. I asked him to learn everything in the owner's manual. Within six months he was checking out material from the Oak Ridge public library. His junior and senior years in high school he devoted to the most advanced courses they offered and when he started college at Case in Cleveland, OH was awarded three credits for advanced work already completed. He finished at Case and immediately entered VPI where he earned a masters in systems engineering. Since 1988 he has changed jobs seven times, once a rocket scientists for two years involved in the SDI work and is currently in charge of software architecture for a large contractor in the Atlanta area. That first little computer obviously inspired him.

About making it to 100.......about 80% of folks who live to 100 end up in diapers and dependent upon others. I hope I just go ahead and drop before those years. At 77 I've seen a lot and will settle for that.

I have seen some of that. Then one of my great-grandmothers lived to 103. She finally just fell over working in her garden. That is kind of like I would like to go. In the garden or out hunting rocks.

Medical tech is advancing as fast as computer tech. We are not far from a time that will allow everyone to remain 100% functional and healthy till the day they die (what would kill a 100% healthy person is another subject).

Dont throw in the towel just yet. Within 20 years you guys might be able to live as long a healthy fully functional life as you want to.

Indefinite lifespan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia