From: eugene@wilbur.nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Real world was Re: How expensive is a cray?  (was: How big is a cray?)
Organization: NAS, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 92 16:05:56 GMT


In article <267@moene.UUCP> toon@moene.uucp (Toon Moene) writes:
I wrote:
>> Physical size:
>> Speed:

>Yeah, that's the problem with these guys from NASA; they always want to  
>get physical ... But the real question - of course - is: what does a Cray  
>cost ?

In response to the "physical" comment (fully realizing the intended humor)
I post a favorite bit from a book.  Not to jab Toon or Gosper, nor
to toot NASA's horn (I can just as easily bash), but for enjoyment's
sake and to offer a pointer on what all this computation is about.
[Probably useful to lore.computers and comp.ai.]

from "Hackers" by Steven Levy quote excerpted without permission
(I'll ask Levy at the next Hackers Conference I attend or run).

|  [Bill] Gosper himself got a glimpse of the limits of the tight circle
|the hackers had drawn.  It happened in the man-maded daylight of the 1972
|Apollo 17 moon shot.  He was a passenger on a special cruise to the
|Caribbean, a "science cruise" timed for the launch, and the boat was
|loaded with sci-fi writers, futurists, scientists of varying stripes,
|cultural commentators, and, according to Gosper, "an unbelievable
|quantity of just completely empty-headed cruise-niks."
|. . .
|  Apollo 17 was to be the first manned space shot initiated at night, and
|the cruise boat was sitting three miles off Cape Kennedy for an
|advantageous view of the launch.  Gosper heard all of the arguments
|against going to the trouble of seeing a lift off -- why not see it on
|television, since you'll be miles away from the actual launch pad?  But when
|he saw the damn thing actually lift off, he appreciated the distance.
|The night had been set ablaze, and the energy peak got to his very insides.
|The shirt slapped on his chest, the change in his pocket jingled, and the
|PA system speakers broke from their brackets on the viewing stand and
|dangled by their power cords.  The rocket, which of course could never have
|held to so true a course without computers, leapt into the sky, hell-bent
|for the cosmos like some flaming avenger, a Spacewar nightmare; the
|cruise-niks were stunned into trances by the power and glory of the sight.
|The Indonesian crewmen went berserk.  Gosper later recalled them
|running around in a panic and throwing their Ping-Pong equipment overboard,
|"like some kind of sacrifice."
|  The sight affected Gosper profoundly.  Before that night, Gosper had
|disdained NASA's human-wave approach toward things.  He had been adamant
|in defending the AI Lab's more individualistic form of hacker elegance in
|programming, and in computing style in general.  But now he saw how the
|Real World, when it hot its mind made up, could have an astounding effect.
|NASA had not applied the Hacker Ethic, yet it had done something the lab,
|for all its pioneering, never could have done.  Gosper realized that the
|ninth-floor hackers were in some sense deluding themselves, working on
|machines of relatively little power compared to the computers of the
|future--yet still trying to do it all, change the world right there in
|the lab.  And since the state of computing had not yet developed machines with
|the power to change the world at large--certainly nothing to make your
|chest rumble as did the NASA operation--all that the hackers wound up
|doing was making Tools to Make Tools.  It was embarrassing.

Bob wrote:
>Can't answer the pricing....  need a Cray salesman to jump in here....

Actually, they have to be careful there.  Restrictions on commercial
use of the net ;^).  General details probably okay....

--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
This is the Usenet: do you expect anything other than gross generalizations?
Ref: Mathematics and Plausible Reasoning, vol. 1, G. Polya


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