Reed's Ruminations: The Past, Present, and Future
Reflections on science, technology, and computing — leavened by personal experience
Tag: Seymour Cray
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It’s the Sum, Not the Parts
Computer architects create something of functional beauty, just as do their cousins who work in the more tangible media of rock and stone. Consider John Cocke and the IBM 801, Ken Batcher and the Goodyear MPP, Tadashi Watanabe and the NEC SX. Similarly, Seymour Cray’s designs balanced many aspects of power engineering, packaging and cooling,…
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Cray and Fernbach Awards
This year, I have the honor and privilege to chair the selection committee for the Seymour Cray and Sidney Fernbach awards, both of which will be presented at SC09 in Portland, Oregon. The deadline for submitting nominations is July 1, 2009. I encourage you to think about our colleagues who have made major contributions to…
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When Petascale Is Just Too Slow
Evolution or revolution, it’s the persistent question. Can we build reliable exascale systems from extrapolations of current technology or will new approaches be required? There is no definitive answer, as almost any approach might be made to work at some level with enough heroic effort. The bigger question is what design would enable the most…
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SC: The Family Gathering
It’s “supercomputing week,” which means that almost everyone who can spell HPC and who can walk, drive, swim or fly will be in Austin, Texas during the week of November 16 for SC08. In short, it’s the place to see and be seen, or perhaps not to be seen if you are spending all of…