From: poser@vxdsyc.desy.de (Till Poser)
Subject: Re: SuperCollider "For" or "Against"
Reply-To: Poser@vxdsyc.desy.de
Organization: Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron, Experiment ZEUS bei HERA
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 14:29:22 GMT

In article <1992Jul26.110151.7363@dscomsf.desy.de>, hallam@zeus02.desy.de (Phillip M. Hallam-Baker) writes:

|>Summary:

|>Mr Tice arguing from a single magazine article from two year ago
|>attempts to argue with a Postdoctoral research fellow in the field.
|>Readers may wish to savour the final paragraph from Mr Tice.


|>In article <01GMRRB8AWJK001E2U@utarlg.uta.edu>, B645ZAW@UTARLG.UTA.EDU
|>(Stephen Tice) writes:
|>|>Interesting that you would leave out *operations and maintenance* cost,
|>|>and are you using superconducting magnets?

|>Yes, we have to, the electricity bill would be too high otherwise. The
|>HERA ring is the first of it's type to use superconducting magnets for a
|>proton ring. Our ring has a 6.3 Km circumference. You can scale up the
|>costs from that.

Just as an apercu here, Phill: 

The whole configuration, i.e. DESY II and III, PETRA, DORIS and HERA are
running on the same power outlet that was built 15 years ago for PETRA 
alone. As far as I recall, this outlet is in the ~10 MWatt range, but You 
had better ask one of the various HERA people. I know however, that one
of the conditions for building HERA was that it was not to exceed the
maximum drain on the grid that DESY already was allowed by the City of
Hamburg. The main reason lies in the fact that HERA was built in, or
rather under, an entirely residential area.

|>|>About electricity though...
|>|>
|>|>The Nation, (3-19-90) "SUPER COLLIDER -- SUPER BUST" by Gayle Hudgins.
|>|>
|>|>    Low utility rates may soon be history too, because the
|>|>    S.S.C. has arranged to have its huge appetite for electricity
|>|>    subsidized...   Not only does the collider's hunger for
|>|>    electricity provide a rationale for an otherwise unnecessary
|>|>    nuclear power plant [speaking of Comanche Peak], the subsidy
|>|>    means that rate payers -- rich and poor alike -- will pay six
|>|>    to to eight times more more than the S.S.C. per kilowatt-hour.

I'd be surprised if the electricity consumption for SSC was much above
the 150 MWatt range, what with scaling and subsidiary injectors. I'd
call the above scare tactics. Chances are that the existing power grid is
entirely capable of taking care of the SSC requirements, though I grant 
that they'll get special rates, such as any bulk electricity consumer.
What shame?

As to Tbyte/s <-> Tbyte/ns controversy (the latter amuses me somewhat),
ZEUS, pre First Level Trigger, has something between 300 and 500ks worth
of data, partially still in analog form, every bunch crossing and that
is every 96 ns. This makes the amount of Raw Data, before  data reduction, 
something like <5 Tbyte/s. After three levels of triggers that is reduced
to 1-2 Mbyte/sec.

If I take a WAG of a scale factor of 10 between the number of ZEUS data 
channels and the number channels of an SSC detector and allow for a bunch 
crossing rate of 60 Mhz, I arrive at somewhere around 300 Tbyte. Assuming 
parallel and pipelined data reduction in various trigger levels, I don't see 
anything unfeasable with that number, even if I rely completely on existing
technology. If we take the ZEUS solution, we'd just plug in another couple
of hundred Two-Transputer-Boards into the Second Level Trigger, since ZEUS
is fully scalable, as far as I know. We'd have to pipeline them somehow, 
though. Comments, Phill?

       Till Poser         Internet: poser@vxdsyc.desy.de
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