Re: Roadrunner Supercomputer using 12,960 CELL Processors Hits 1 PetaFlop ?(1000 TeraFlops) of double-precision FP Performance

In comp.sys.super AirRaid <AirRaidJet@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Yes, this is cross-posted, because IMO it deserves to be.  This is a
> milestone in computing performance, thus, IMO, it should be as widely
> posted as possible.
> 
> This isn't spam whatsoever, so if you want to get pissed that it's a
> cross post, okay,
> just don't think it's spam.
> 
> I posted about the Roadrunner supercomputer back in September 2006
> when it was announced. Now it's up and running.
> 
> 
> 
> 
>
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/06/09/business/09petaflop.enlarge.jpg
> 
> Military Supercomputer Sets Record
> 
> By JOHN MARKOFF
> Published: June 9, 2008
> 
> SAN FRANCISCO ? An American military supercomputer, assembled from
> components originally designed for video game machines, has reached a
> long-sought-after computing milestone by processing more than 1.026
> quadrillion calculations per second.
> 
> 
> The Roadrunner supercomputer costs $133 million and will be used to
> study nuclear weapons.
> 
> The new machine is more than twice as fast as the previous fastest
> supercomputer, the I.B.M. BlueGene/L, which is based at Lawrence
> Livermore National Laboratory in California.
> 
> The new $133 million supercomputer, called Roadrunner in a reference
> to the state bird of New Mexico, was devised and built by engineers
> and scientists at I.B.M. and Los Alamos National Laboratory, based in
> Los Alamos, N.M. It will be used principally to solve classified
> military problems to ensure that the nation?s stockpile of nuclear
> weapons will continue to work correctly as they age. The Roadrunner
> will simulate the behavior of the weapons in the first fraction of a
> second during an explosion.

I wonder what they really do with these computers.

I find it unlikely they still don't know how nuclear weapons work, 
especially considering they're mature technology and they've been around 
for decades.