[Coco] $1,000 supercomputer

[John Donaldson]

Since it does not have a fixed instruction set, I bet Bill Gates and 
Company does not have a
version of XP for it.

John Donaldson



Bootstrap Bill wrote:


>The following was published in 1999. It claims that we could have a $1,000

>computer capable of processing 100 billion instructions per second within 18

>months. It's been over five years and still no word from the company. Has

>anyone heard anything about this? I want one!

>

>

>http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9906/15/supercomp.idg/index.html

>

>

>A $1000 supercomputer?

>

>June 15, 1999

>Web posted at: 8:46 a.m. EDT (1246 GMT)

>

>by Mark Brownstein

>

>(IDG) -- Within 18 months, you may be able to put the equivalent of today's

>supercomputer on your desktop--for about $1000. The CPU, long the heart of

>all PCs, may be an unnecessary component in tomorrow's high-performance

>computers.

>

>

>The new computer will be able to process 100 billion instructions per

>second, according to Kent Gilson, chief technical officer of Star Bridge

>Systems. Company representatives discussed their plans for a high-end PC

>this week while announcing HAL-300GrW1, a "hypercomputer" that is said to be

>60,000 times as fast as a 350-MHz Pentium, and many times as fast as IBM's

>supercomputer Pacific Blue. (The test used to measure the HAL's performance

>was different from the measure used for Pacific Blue, so exact comparisons

>are difficult.)

>

>The new $1000 computer will be "three orders of magnitude different in

>price-performance [ratio]" from today's PCs, Gilson claims. It will fill

>many of the roles of a supercomputer, such as voice recognition, natural

>language processing, and holographic displays, he says. What's more, Gilson

>says, this super-PC will "run PC applications in emulation mode, in a manner

>similar to how the DEC Alpha runs NT, but it will run it a lot faster."

>

>HAL comes first

>

>Although Gilson claims the hardware for such a PC is ready now, and that

>Star Bridge Systems has completed the programming language, called Viva, the

>company's initial focus is on its high-end hypercomputer line, HAL. The

>HAL-300GrW1 has a price tag of about $26 million, so it doesn't take a

>hypercomputer to understand why Star Bridge Systems has chosen to direct its

>attention to the HAL line first.

>

>"We're a small company. If we came out with a PC, we wouldn't be able to

>sell enough [to fund the company], but we can sell hundreds a year of the

>high-end ones, so it just makes sense," Gilson says.

>

>In today's computing terms, the architecture Star Bridge Systems has

>developed is a "massively parallel, ultratightly coupled, asymmetrical

>multiprocessor." It is based on a processor called a field programmable gate

>array, Gilson says. FPGAs can be programmed on the fly, so their

>configuration can be changed to perform the particular task at hand most

>efficiently.

>

>FPGAs can be changed thousands of times per second. So in essence, an FPGA

>can become a specially designed CPU tailored to perform a required task

>right when you need the new processing architecture.

>

>The traditional CPU, by contrast, has a fixed instruction set that is burnt

>into silicon. Programming instructions are written to work with the

>instruction set, and are limited by the capabilities built into it.

>

>Suitcase supercomputer

>

>Star Bridge Systems had sold one HAL computer upon the line's announcement.

>For one sales pitch, Gilson showed off what he calls a "HAL Junior"--a model

>that fits into a suitcase but delivers 640 billion instructions per second.

>

>The company has mapped out a series of hypercomputer systems, ranging in

>performance from the HAL-10GrW1, capable of conducting 10 billion

>floating-point operations per second, to a HAL-100TrW1, which conducts 100

>trillion floating point operations per second. The company is also selling

>signal-processing products (switches and routers) based on its HAL

>technology. These network products are designed for scientific

>supercomputing and extremely high-demand telecommunications.

>

>Meanwhile, Star Bridge Systems representatives are speaking with major

>companies that have expressed interest in HAL, and that undoubtedly wonder

>whether the system can deliver the performance promised. Initial targets are

>those currently using supercomputers, and those who might see this as a

>higher-performance, lower-cost supercomputer.

>

>"Eventually, reconfigurable computing [a term coined by Gilson, referring to

>the underlying technology behind the hypercomputer] will permeate all

>information systems, just because it's faster, cheaper, and better," Gilson

>predicts.

>

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