HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: zzassgl@uts.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Lane)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.super
Subject: Re: What are people paying for when they by a supercomputer?
Date: 18 Nov 92 14:49:55 GMT
Organization: Manchester Computing Centre, Manchester, England, M13 9PL.

In article <1992Nov16.174414.12427@craycos.com> jrbd@craycos.com (James Davies) writes:
>In article <1992Nov16.141214.7632@walter.bellcore.com> mo@bellcore.com writes:
>>if you know how to build a 1GFLOP machine for $10,000
>>(much less sell it for that much), then you should do
>>so immediately and become immensely wealthy.
>>
>>i don't know where you got this $10K number, but boy,
>>are you confused.
>
>Actually, even the $250,000/GFLOP number sounds a bit low to me; $2M/GFLOP
>is closer to the current going rate.


MIPs aren't the problem - I/O and memory access is the problem.  Any old 
fool can plug together a bunch of Intel CPU chips and claim that the 
resulting box is faster than a Cray (usually the model isn't specified :-) 
but it takes an expert to get the bus architecture correct.  It's also damn 
expensive.










-- 
Geoff. Lane. | Internet: zzassgl@uts.mcc.ac.uk | Janet: zzassgl@uk.ac.mcc.uts
UTS Sys Admin,  Manchester Computing Centre,  Oxford Rd,  Manchester, M13 9PL
During a week's TV I want to be entertained, bored, delighted, disgusted, made
happy, saddened, enlightened, mystified, else they aren't doing the job right.
From: jrbd@craycos.com (James Davies)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.super
Subject: Re: What are people paying for when they by a supercomputer?
Date: 16 Nov 92 17:44:14 GMT
Organization: Cray Computer Corporation

In article <1992Nov16.141214.7632@walter.bellcore.com> mo@bellcore.com writes:
>if you know how to build a 1GFLOP machine for $10,000
>(much less sell it for that much), then you should do
>so immediately and become immensely wealthy.
>
>i don't know where you got this $10K number, but boy,
>are you confused.

Actually, even the $250,000/GFLOP number sounds a bit low to me; $2M/GFLOP
is closer to the current going rate.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.super
From: solman@athena.mit.edu (Jason W Solinsky)
Subject: Precision-performance tradeoffs
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 00:22:11 GMT

My thanks to everybody who answered my last question.

I have an other question reguarding how much the
support of lower precision fp numbers is worth to
people buying supercomputers, where a supercomputer
is defined as any machine which attains 1 GFLOP
sustained while running "typical" code.

Suppose that somebody were designing a machine that
only directly supported a 2^N bit FP format and
2^N bit integers. Suppose that the amount of I/O
bandwidth (and blinking lights) have already been
fixed, but the designer believes that he/she
may be loosing a significant portion of the
market which uses 2^(N-1) and 2^(N-2) formats.

Without changing the cost at all, The designer
realizes that he/she can create machines with
the following five specifications.

Option 1: A 2^N bit FP      GFLOPS
          A 2^N bit Integer GOPS

Option 2: B     2^N     bit FP      GFLOPS
          B     2^N     bit Integer GOPS
          (2*B) 2^(N-1) bit Integer GOPS

Option 3: C     2^N     bit FP      GFLOPS
          C     2^N     bit Integer GOPS
          (2*C) 2^(N-1) bit FP      GFLOPS
          (2*C) 2^(N-1) bit Integer GOPS

Option 4: D     2^N     bit FP      GFLOPS
          D     2^N     bit Integer GOPS
          (2*D) 2^(N-1) bit Integer GOPS
          (4*D) 2^(N-2) bit Integer GOPS

Option 5: E     2^N     bit FP      GFLOPS
          E     2^N     bit Integer GOPS
          (2*E) 2^(N-1) bit FP      GFLOPS
          (2*E) 2^(N-1) bit Integer GOPS
          (4*E) 2^(N-2) bit FP      GFLOPS
          (4*E) 2^(N-2) bit Integer GOPS

Suppose that 2B>2C>A>B>C
             2D>B>D
             2E>C>E
             D>E

How high must B be for customers to prefer it
over A? How high must D be for customers to
prefer it over B? ect.

In other words, when it is possible to increase
tremendously the speed of lower precision
operations at the cost of higher precision
operations, AT WHAT POINT DOES THE GAIN IN
PERFORMANCE OF THE LOWER PRECISION OPERATIONS
JUSTIFY THE DECREASE IN HIGHER PRECISION
PERFORMANCE.

A corrolary question is:

If machine A gives X   GFLOPS of 64 bit power,
   machine B gives 2*Y GFLOPS of 32 bit power, and
   machine C gives 4*Z GFLOPS of 16 bit power, and

X = Y = Z, Which would you prefer?

If X = 1.1*Y = 1.2*Z, Would that still be the case?

Thanks, Jason W. Solinsky.
From: sog@craycos.com (Steve Gombosi)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.super
Subject: Re: What are people paying for when they by a supercomputer?
Date: 16 Nov 92 17:13:14 GMT
Organization: Cray Computer Corporation

In article <1992Nov16.023102.21232@nas.nasa.gov> eugene@wilbur.nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya) writes:
>>solman@athena.mit.edu (Jason W Solinsky) writes:
>>>what are they getting in addition to computational power?
>In article <1992Nov15.200933.16043@news.cs.indiana.edu>
>"Peter Beckman" <beckman@moose.cs.indiana.edu> writes:
>>Simple: R&D, software, support, and lots of cool mugs, t-shirts,
>>highlighters, colorful posters, and slick glossies. -Pete
>
>How about >32-bit addressing: multi GB file systems, real 30+ MB/S file reads,
>50 MB/S communication, decent numeric FP precision and performance, etc.
>

And several hundred gallons of Fluorinert(r) ;-).

Steve
From: psu@cs.duke.edu (Peter Su)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.super
Subject: Re: What are people paying for when they by a s
Date: 17 Nov 92 15:07:17 GMT
Organization: Duke University CS Dept., Durham, NC

Hardware performance monitors.

Not all machines have this, but boy it's handy when developing new algorithms.

Pete

--
Department of Computer Science, Duke University, Durham, NC 27706
Internet:	psu@cs.duke.edu
UUCP:		mcnc!duke!psu
From: dhd@exnet.co.uk (Damon)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.super
Subject: Re: What are people paying for when they by a supercomputer?
Date: 16 Nov 92 07:54:47 GMT
Organization: ExNet Systems Ltd Public Access News, London, UK

In article <1992Nov15.201147.5302@athena.mit.edu> solman@athena.mit.edu (Jason W Solinsky) writes:
>It seems to me that supercomputing power costs about $250,000 per GFLOP
>nowadays. It also seems to me that a company could sell a GFLOP box that
>has enough memory, I/O and internal bandwidth to support near peak
>performance at under $10,000 and have PLENTY of profit margin.
>
>My question is, when people buy supercomputers at $250,000 per GFLOP, what are
>they getting in addition to computational power?

Amongst other things:

Support, libraries, a suitable OS, some apps, CPU cooling plant...

Damon
-- 
Damon Hart-Davis                          Internet: dhd@exnet.co.uk, d@hd.org

Public-access UNIX (Suns), news and mail for UK#5 per month.  FIRST MONTH FREE.
[1.35] Cheap Sun eqpt.  UUCP news/mail feeds.  Tel/Fax: +44 81 755 0077.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.super
From: turner@beta.lanl.gov (John A. Turner)
Subject: Re: What are people paying for when they by a supercomputer?
Summary: great parties
Organization: Los Alamos National Lab
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 17:05:52 GMT

Well, I can't resist.  Whoever said you should be at Supercomputing '92
to resolve this question was right.  I found out the true answer last
night: great parties.

I first went to TMC's party.  They had rented out an entire *very*
nice restaurant.  Drinks were free (and they had Sam Adams lager and
Oktoberfest as well as some local brews on tap) and the food was
incredible.

Having been tipped off to get to Intel's party at one of the main hotels
by 9:30, which was when the follow-up party would be announced, I left
TMC's and rushed over.  Got there just as the Minnesota Vikings cheer-
leaders were handing out Intel medallions and shepherding people onto
buses.  The buses took us to Prince's nightclub, _Glam Slam_, where
Intel had rented a very large room.  Again free drinks (but no really
good brews) and good food (although not nearly as good as TMC's).
[Unfortunately, it seemed to me that some of the attendees appeared
somewhat, uh, shall we say, less than comfortable at _Glam Slam_.]

Very different approaches, but both fun.  I must say I think I preferred
TMC's overall.

So *that* is what people are paying for when they buy a supercomputer!

-John

P.S.  To preempt any comments about boondoggles, etc., let me just say
      that the technical content of this meeting has been excellent,
      and that I was here at 8:30 AM this morning for the panel
      discussion/debate titled "Which Fortran for High-Performance
      Computing?", which was lots of fun.  But that's for another post.

P.P.S.  This is also the most well-organized conference I've ever attended.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.super
From: eugene@wilbur.nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: What are people paying for when they by a supercomputer?
Organization: NAS, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 02:31:02 GMT

>solman@athena.mit.edu (Jason W Solinsky) writes:
>>what are they getting in addition to computational power?
In article <1992Nov15.200933.16043@news.cs.indiana.edu>
"Peter Beckman" <beckman@moose.cs.indiana.edu> writes:
>Simple: R&D, software, support, and lots of cool mugs, t-shirts,
>highlighters, colorful posters, and slick glossies. -Pete

How about >32-bit addressing: multi GB file systems, real 30+ MB/S file reads,
50 MB/S communication, decent numeric FP precision and performance, etc.

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@orville.nas.nasa.gov
  Associate Editor, Software and Publication Reviews
  Scientific Programming
  {uunet,mailrus,other gateways}!ames!eugene
Seeking Books to buy:	Bongard, Pattern Recognition
			3 down 1 to go.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.super
From: cg@myrias.ab.ca (Chris Gray)
Subject: Re: What are people paying for when they by a supercomputer?
Summary: Blinking lights are great!
Organization: Myrias Research Corporation
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 92 22:34:13 GMT

In article <1992Nov17.192804.4410@news.eng.convex.com> patrick@convex.COM (Patrick F. McGehearty) writes:
>In article <JET.92Nov17104503@boxer.nas.nasa.gov> jet@boxer.nas.nasa.gov (J. Eric Townsend) writes:
>>Blinking lights.  Lots and lots of blinking lights....
>
>However, current systems have other methods for getting similar information.
>Other than being a designer preference for "flash" vs "cool", what benefits
>do lots of blinking lights offer, and what should they represent?
>I.e. Do people have suggestions for specific hardware events that might
>be connected to blinking lights on a massively parallel shared memory super?

I'm a great fan of blinking lights. They can be quite valuable for the system
programmers and for knowledgeable application programmers. On the Myrias
system, we have 6 software-controllable LEDs per processor on a PE tile, and
a few others on the communication card to indicate backplane and intercom
cable activity. The current Myrias kernel uses the 6 LEDs for things like:
executing user code, executing system code, executing in BERR mode, TOD tick,
etc. Special patterns are used when something goes worng. Thus, a quick
glance at the lights can show if the user code has crashed the domain.
Hardware problems can show up as procesors whose lights don't follow the
same pattern as others. Performance bottlenecks can show up similarly -
detecting "stragglers" (tasks that run much longer than all others) is quite
easy. Most of these things can also be done without looking at the lights,
but it is often quicker to just take a quick look. I've seen applications
programmers use the lights to get a feel for the kinds of data motions
(in very rough terms) that a program is causing.

In my own case (programming the IOPs), I use the top 2 LEDs as a simple
blinker in my idle loop - how quickly they blink is a nice indicator of
how busy it is. I've used other lights as simple counters for things like
transaction traffic - even a couple of bits can give you some idea of the
rates, etc. by how fast they blink (you have to pick which bits you want
to see of the real counter). A nice combination of hardware-controlled LEDs
and software controlled ones is VERY good to have.

And last, but not least is hardware diagnostics. If the power-up code does
self-tests, it can display its progress on the LEDs, so that it is easy to
get a clue about what is wrong with something. Our board bring-up people also
used this extensively when bringing the boards up originally.

When a remote site complains that something doesn't work, we have often had
them look at various lights and tell us what they are doing.
-- 
Chris Gray	Myrias Computer Technologies Inc.   (403) 463-1337
	cg@myrias.ab.ca          ...!uunet!myrias!cg
Newsgroups: comp.sys.super
From: dilmore@cray.com (Robert J. Dilmore)
Subject: Re: Der Blinken Lights: What are people paying for
Organization: Cray Research, Inc.
Date: 18 Nov 92 08:09:41 CST

In article <1992Nov18.003655.2629@nas.nasa.gov> eugene@wilbur.nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya) writes:
>In article <1992Nov17.192804.4410@news.eng.convex.com>
>patrick@convex.COM (Patrick F. McGehearty) writes:
>Discussion on the C.mmp.
>>However, current systems have other methods for getting similar information.
>>Other than being a designer preference for "flash" vs "cool", what benefits
>>do lots of blinking lights offer, and what should they represent?
>>I.e. Do people have suggestions for specific hardware events that might
>>be connected to blinking lights on a massively parallel shared memory super?


   This may border on Urban Legend but... In the early days of the Connection
Machine, Disney productions indicated that they wanted a CM for amimation.
There was one problem, they wanted the red leds that light up when a processor
cluster is active replaced with red,blue and green. They thought it would be
neat to try and program the machine so that when it was idle it would have an
animation of Mickey Mouse or somesuch on the side of the machine. TM refused
to mod the machine and the sale fell through. Can a TMer verify this?

Robert Dilmore
Cray Research Inc.
From: borasky@ogicse.ogi.edu (M. Edward Borasky)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.super
Subject: Re: What are people paying for when they by a supercomputer?
Date: 17 Nov 92 15:18:38 GMT
Article-I.D.: ogicse.46021
Organization: Oregon Graduate Institute (formerly OGC), Beaverton, OR

In article <1992Nov15.201147.5302@athena.mit.edu> solman@athena.mit.edu (Jason W Solinsky) writes:
>It seems to me that supercomputing power costs about $250,000 per GFLOP
>nowadays. It also seems to me that a company could sell a GFLOP box that
>has enough memory, I/O and internal bandwidth to support near peak
>performance at under $10,000 and have PLENTY of profit margin.
>
>My question is, when people buy supercomputers at $250,000 per GFLOP, what are
>they getting in addition to computational power?
I/O, SCALAR performance, compilers, an operating system, folks who live
with the system and fix it when it breaks, the ability to run major third-
party codes and get the right answers, help with porting YOUR applications, and
a CREDIBLE growth path -- confidence that the vendor will be able to grow a 
system to meet your needs.

I'm sure in the next few years you will be able to buy a 1-GFLOP CHIP (i860 or
Alpha compatible) for a few hundred dollars; perhaps $10K for the board-level
version with some memory (will it be enough???) and some kind of I/O (is VME
fast enough????).  If cost per GFLOP is your criterion, you should be buying
an array processor board and putting it in a workstation.  But if you want to
do supercomputing, I'm afraid you're going to have to buy a supercomputer.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.super
From: eugene@wilbur.nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: CFCs, What are people paying for when they by a supercomputer?
Organization: NAS, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 19:28:10 GMT

>>>>>what are they getting in addition to computational power?

>In <1992Nov16.171314.2178@craycos.com> sog@craycos.com (Steve Gombosi) writes:
>>... several hundred gallons of Fluorinert(r) ;-).

In article <schumach.721938542@convex.convex.com> schumach@convex.com
(Richard A. Schumacher) writes:
>Not necessarily. Some of us are ozone-friendly. :->

This is a question we apparently get all the time since the O^3 work is
done at another part of Ames.  We, of course, have to be answerable to this
and the CRI line (since we have to ask them) is that it's in a different
family of CFCs.

Now, I could go over to Pollock's office in atmospheric chemistry, or
some one from NCAR could pipe in, BUT let there be no mistake, the
amount of Fluorinert running in Crays is probably trivial to the amount used
in baths and washes (I've seen the one in Richardson) used in making computers
and other electronics (as I view another hazying Silicon Valley day):
Intel, NSC, AMD, MIPS/SGI, etc.

So this should not be a case of "out of sight, out of mind." 8^)

Ironic, eh?

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@orville.nas.nasa.gov
  Resident Cynic, Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers
  {uunet,mailrus,other gateways}!ames!eugene
Second Favorite email message: Returned mail: Cannot send message for 3 days
A Ref: Mathematics and Plausible Reasoning, vol. 1, G. Polya
Newsgroups: comp.sys.super
From: jlg@cochiti.lanl.gov (J. Giles)
Subject: Bandwidth, bandwidth, clock speed, and (mostly) bandwidth (was: What are people paying for when they by a supercomputer?)
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 18:59:14 GMT


That's what's needed.  You need bandwidth between the CPU and the memory.
What's the use of a GFlop machine if you can only feed it at full speed
through a narrow cache?  A *large* cache maybe will do, but then the cache
is the *real* memory of the machine and what you're calling memory is
really solid-state disk.

You need bandwidth between the memory and the external storage devices.
What's the use of a fast machine if it requires lots of idle cycles
while swaps and/or page-faults are handled?

You need bandwidth among the CPUs.  What's the point of having more
than one processor if they spend lots of idle cycles waiting for
interprocessor communications?

The CPU need be no faster than all this bandwidth can effectively *feed*.
That's why some of the most costly components of supercomputers are memory, 
I/O channels, solid-state disks, fast magnetic disks, etc..

To be sure, there are some algorithms which can use up a lot of CPU
cycles without needing much memory access, much less much other 
communication.  Such algorithms can give the so-called "super-micros"
some really impressive benchmark numbers.  But, if they don't have
the bandwidth, such "super-micros" are really very super.  And if they
*do* have the bandwidth, they end up costing in the same ballpark as
existing mainframe supercomputers.

-- 
J. Giles
Newsgroups: comp.sys.super
From: jim@canopus.meiko.co.uk (James Cownie)
Subject: Re: What are people paying for when they by a supercomputer?
Organization: meiko
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 09:59:03 GMT

In article <JET.92Nov17104503@boxer.nas.nasa.gov>, jet@boxer.nas.nasa.gov (J. Eric Townsend) writes:
|> 
|> 
|> What a silly question.
|> 
|> Blinking lights.  Lots and lots of blinking lights.   well, if one
|> buys a massively parallel supercomputer, one gets blinking lights.

You have the wrong technical term here. Those aren't blinking lights, 
they're the "Front panel visualization tool" (Page 6 Intel Paragon 
Supercomputer glossy : order no 203/6/92/10K/GA)

-- 
James Cownie 
Meiko Limited
650 Aztec West
Bristol BS12 4SD
England

Phone : +44 454 616171
FAX   : +44 454 618188
E-Mail: jim@meiko.co.uk or jim@meiko.com

Newsgroups: comp.sys.super
From: mo@gizmo.bellcore.com (Michael O'Dell)
Subject: Re: What are people paying for when they by a supercomputer?
Keywords: 
 
Reply-To: mo@bellcore.com
Organization: Center for Chaotic Repeatabilty
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 14:12:14 GMT

if you know how to build a 1GFLOP machine for $10,000
(much less sell it for that much), then you should do
so immediately and become immensely wealthy.

i don't know where you got this $10K number, but boy,
are you confused.

	-Mike

Bellcore?? Bellcore isn't allowed opinions - these be mine.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.super
From: fsset@bach.lerc.nasa.gov (Scott Townsend)
Subject: Re: What are people paying for when they by a supercomputer?
Organization: NASA Lewis Research Center [Cleveland, Ohio]
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 15:50:05 GMT

In article <JET.92Nov17165616@boxer.nas.nasa.gov> jet@boxer.nas.nasa.gov (J. Eric Townsend) writes:
>"patrick" == Patrick F. McGehearty <patrick@convex.COM> writes:
>JET == jet@boxer.nas.nasa.gov (J. Eric Townsend) 
>
>JET>Blinking lights.  Lots and lots of blinking lights....
>
>patrick> have suggestions for specific hardware events that might be
>patrick> connected to blinking lights on a massively parallel shared
>patrick> memory super?
>
>I sorta like the ipsc/delta/sigma solution:
> - one for cpu active
> - <something> for communication
> - one for node failure
>
>I've seen more than one person debug their code on the ipsc/860 by
>sitting in front of the cabinet and watching the led's.. "See, it hung
>in computation after the third massive data shuffle..."
>

Although I'm fond of lights, and have found uses for them, the information
they provide is limited to the machine room (unless you have a video link
to you workstation and a camera in front of the machine ;-)

I've implemented something like SGI's gr_osview into our locally developed
hypercube topology machine here.  It's much lower bandwidth than real lights,
but I can display cpu usage, message rates, byte communication rates, link
contention, etc. for each node in a matrix of bar graphs.  Click on the
graph and you get a detail including history of the last 30 secs of samples.

This has been quite helpfull towards giving me a feeling for how things are
progressing, but I'd really like a way to associate the events recorded in
the display with portions of the code.  I can see commiunications getting
congested but I don't know where in the code I might try to change things.

So while lights (or my remote bar graph mechanism) are good for seeing really
gross features of program behaviour, I'd like to find a mechanism to relate
such statistics to locations in the code causing them.  Does anyone know
of a system which can do this?  I'm a bit familiar with things like ParaGraph
events, but do any systems report low-level events in a way the programmer
can relate to the code?


-- 
Scott Townsend,  Sverdrup Technology Inc.  NASA Lewis Research Center Group
fsset@bach.lerc.nasa.gov
Newsgroups: comp.sys.super
From: solman@athena.mit.edu (Jason W Solinsky)
Subject: Re: What are people paying for when they by a supercomputer?
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 07:35:31 GMT

I am not going to bother trying to prove that $10K for 1 GFLOP peak is
very do-able. If you don't believe me that's fine, but I think I have
here the bits of information that I was looking for on why we don't see
machines with this price performance.

In article <1992Nov16.192316.22684@news.eng.convex.com>, Patrick F. McGehearty <patrick@convex.COM> writes:

|> Going from parts cost to full product takes on the order of a factor of 5
|> for low to moderate volume products.

|> It is also worth noting that any system that is shipping today started its
|> design 2 to 5 years ago.  A design started today should produce a product
|> which cost significantly less with a higher performance.

While I am working on a related project of my own, I originally asked the
question after noting the HUGE price difference between the low-end and
high-end AXP machines, and the comparatively low performance gain. Clearly
people are getting something for that extra money and its not superior
performance. I wanted to see what people who may have been involved in the
purchase of a supercomputer think they got for their money.

Jason W. Solinsky