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Um, STL.

As sibling pointed out its Irix with an 3d navigator.. and i just realized that i wrote "an" instead of an "a" because in my head i was pronouncing "ay heref etc..."

Actually this thing would have melted down and cried in the face of Weta's storage needs, just because it's dense doesn't mean it's fast. You need lots of spindles, and 4 doesn't count. The average FibreChannel disk is good for maybe 200-300 ops per second, so you really want lots of 'em.

They use a mix of NAS and DAS storage, I belive the DAS consists mainly of SGI stuff using XFS and CXFS, while the NAS stuff is all NetApp Filers which can have hundreds of disks

NetApp PR

SGI PR

B

So why are you still able to buy Fortran compilers? Because the people who use the language tend to be engineers (the physical kind) and scientists, and thus spend a lot of money on high-end computers. No Fortran compiler, not fat contracts for your Starfire and Origin boxes. Which is why Sun and SGI both sell Fortran. And whose the leading vendor of Fortran for the Itanium? Good guess.

So is IBM trying to help Apple sell more Macs? Probably not. They'd make a little money from the extra CPU sales, but not enough to justify something like this. More likely they have this compiler to help them sell more high-performance PPC systems. As long as they have it, not that much extra effort to port it to the Mac.

Hard to tell, it could be any flavor of un*x. SGI has a short blub on their website about the terrain simulation hardware. Might even be IRIX running a different window manager.

I currently make most of my living programming Java, yet I view it as either C++ for dummies or Python for suites, and either way, it doesn't match the original.

Anyone have any comments regarding these vs. the sgi file manager? I was a big fan of their file path widget thingy. Here is an example of it:
http://www.sgi.com/software/irix/images/thumbnai ls .gif
It's nice how you can move up/down the tree by clicking the folder's button.

I've never used the pathfinder/gtkcopy path widget, but I'd like to see how it performs in daily usage.

One thing I notice is that the buttons on the path aren't editable, a aspect of sgi's that I liked.

If they mean offerings from IBM or SGI, Microsoft may be on to something with their cost numbers. Then again, the idea of "Windows Clusters" scares me to death.

Spirit is an entirely different story. The images we've seen so far are just from positioning/navigation cameras which only image in b&w. But I believe the first color images from the high-res, color cameras are due to reach us any time now. We should have high-res color pics sometime today.

Spirit has far better batteries, lots more energy, and a much longer mission schedule. Where Sojourner was expected to run for just 7 days, Spirit and Opportunity are expected to run for 90 days. The mission schedules this time are more deliberate and meticulous.

Today Spirit is going to begin to put down it's wheels and "stand up." But that whole process with take two days. And it won't actually roll off the pad and onto Martian soil until the 9th or 10th day after the landing.

So just have patience. We should see the first color pictures today, and Spirit will start puttering around the surface by the middle of next week.

Failure to provide instant gratification isn't a sign of general failure, nor an indicator of conspiracy. ;)

* Here's the Mars Pathfinder mission web site

* And here's an overview of the current Spirit & Opportunity missions.

Spirit is an entirely different story. The images we've seen so far are just from positioning/navigation cameras which only image in b&w. But I believe the first color images from the high-res, color cameras are due to reach us any time now. We should have high-res color pics sometime today.

Spirit has far better batteries, lots more energy, and a much longer mission schedule. Where Sojourner was expected to run for just 7 days, Spirit and Opportunity are expected to run for 90 days. The mission schedules this time are more deliberate and meticulous.

Today Spirit is going to begin to put down it's wheels and "stand up." But that whole process with take two days. And it won't actually roll off the pad and onto Martian soil until the 9th or 10th day after the landing.

So just have patience. We should see the first color pictures today, and Spirit will start puttering around the surface by the middle of next week.

Failure to provide instant gratification isn't a sign of general failure, nor an indicator of conspiracy. ;)

* Here's the Mars Pathfinder mission web site

* And here's an overview of the current Spirit & Opportunity missions.

According to the TV news the other day here (UK), Beagle 2 was the first craft to actually use a parachute on a Mars descent (the idea was to slow it down for an impact on the surface at 40mph or so).

I think most, if not all previous Mars landers have used parachutes as part of the landing process, but they had some form of retro-rockets as well - Beagle 2 had none.

Mars does has an atmosphere, and though it's thick enough for parachutes to be used to dump most of the kinetic energy remaining after the heat-shield's been jettisoned, it's still too thin for a nice, gentle touchdown without a huge parachute.

Beagle 2 must have been small and light enough to warrant the use of no rockets at all; ~70kg versus ~800kg for one of the upcoming Nasa rovers must make a big difference. Simpler may be better, but sadly it still sounds like something went wrong...

Viking landing
Pathfinder landing
Beagle 2 landing

• Canon BG for 300D
  
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• Canon EF35mm 1.4L USM.
  
• Canon EF 35-350mm 3.5-5.6 L USM
  
• Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM
  
• Canon EF 180 mm f/3.5L Macro USM
  
• Canon TS-E 45 mm f/2.8
  
• 4GB CF
  
• SGI Origin 3900
  
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Circa one year ago. You'll just have to trust me I suppose, but my roommate trashed his install pretty quickly by accidentally unplugging his computer FROM THE UPS. Hilarious. He spilled water on the floor next to a surge protector that powered his guitar amplifier, water heater and stereo. Went to pull that from the UPS (not sure why it was in there--"extra sockets" he says) and pulled the computer out. Rebooted and x crashed to console, the emacs file was full of zeros, and various other nuisances. All his user files were intact, thankfully. Sure would suck to lose the art he was workin on.

In contrast, I didn't bother with a UPS. Just ran ext3, and every time some jackass thinks its funny to pull the plug, or when the shitty middle of kansas power grid fails me, it just means an fsck on reboot.

The lesson is that not all Journallings are made equal. You can set ext3 to suck just as much as xfs, but it seems foolish. XFS only journals the meta data, rather than the data itself. Since I'm enlightening the ignorant, I'll go ahead and even link to SGI's faq on the subject. Basically their excuse is "thats a feature not a bug." Go figure.

Yes.

I claim prior art! Surely, anyone seeing that must immediately think of the security system in Jurassic Park? "Hey, it's a UNIX system! I know this!"

Ummm, that was UNIX. SGI's UNIX (Irix) to be exact. More info can be found here.

SGI has an overview on the XFS filesystem, just briefly pointing out some highlights. I also recall reading somewhere that it was possible (moreso than ext* filesystems) to undelete files on an XFS filesystem, although I'm skeptical.

You do realize that 3D filesystem program actually exists, right?

SGI.

> As soon as Linux scales well to 128+ CPUs with full binary compatibility

You'll going to eat your shit pretty soon.

SGI Altix 3000 Supercomputer 64 CPUs, runs Linux. There should be a 256 CPU version out in the future.

Er, they did. There's even a C-like programming language, in case you don't want to write raw assembler for these processors. The whole process of uploading stuff on the graphics card is halfway standarized, at least in OpenGL; I don't use DX, but according to documentation you can use the same shaders with similar commands.

Documentation of the OpenGL side is in the OpenGL Extension Registry, look for "shader" and "program".

I'd say that if you're on about the graphics subsystem of DirectX then OpenGL is pretty much at the same level if.. and only if.. you are willing to use the standardised extensions. If you're not using these expect slowness, if you're using the non-standardised vendor-specific extensions then expect more speed but more difficulty in making it work across the board.

...snip...

And this from one of the more bleeding-edge dists no less.

Indeed. Bleeding edge often means instability; I have heard some of the freakiest XFS problems from Gentoo users. Problems that often go away when they revert to the stock kernel, so I have to wonder what all Gentoo is doing in their kernel.

Considering that so many of the people who clamor for xfs (imx) are kids...

Indeed. Would those be the kids at Fermilab or the kids at NASA? Maybe the newbies at the Salk Institute or at Incyte Genomics. Perhaps you were thinking of the know-nothings at Quantum or the meddlers at Echostar...

I'm sure if SGI actually cleans up the interface it'll go in but who knows if _that_ will ever happen.

Please also offer some pointers on which parts of the "interface" you feel should be cleaned up.

...snip...

And this from one of the more bleeding-edge dists no less.

Indeed. Bleeding edge often means instability; I have heard some of the freakiest XFS problems from Gentoo users. Problems that often go away when they revert to the stock kernel, so I have to wonder what all Gentoo is doing in their kernel.

Considering that so many of the people who clamor for xfs (imx) are kids...

Indeed. Would those be the kids at Fermilab or the kids at NASA? Maybe the newbies at the Salk Institute or at Incyte Genomics. Perhaps you were thinking of the know-nothings at Quantum or the meddlers at Echostar...

I'm sure if SGI actually cleans up the interface it'll go in but who knows if _that_ will ever happen.

Please also offer some pointers on which parts of the "interface" you feel should be cleaned up.

...snip...

And this from one of the more bleeding-edge dists no less.

Indeed. Bleeding edge often means instability; I have heard some of the freakiest XFS problems from Gentoo users. Problems that often go away when they revert to the stock kernel, so I have to wonder what all Gentoo is doing in their kernel.

Considering that so many of the people who clamor for xfs (imx) are kids...

Indeed. Would those be the kids at Fermilab or the kids at NASA? Maybe the newbies at the Salk Institute or at Incyte Genomics. Perhaps you were thinking of the know-nothings at Quantum or the meddlers at Echostar...

I'm sure if SGI actually cleans up the interface it'll go in but who knows if _that_ will ever happen.

Please also offer some pointers on which parts of the "interface" you feel should be cleaned up.

...snip...

And this from one of the more bleeding-edge dists no less.

Indeed. Bleeding edge often means instability; I have heard some of the freakiest XFS problems from Gentoo users. Problems that often go away when they revert to the stock kernel, so I have to wonder what all Gentoo is doing in their kernel.

Considering that so many of the people who clamor for xfs (imx) are kids...

Indeed. Would those be the kids at Fermilab or the kids at NASA? Maybe the newbies at the Salk Institute or at Incyte Genomics. Perhaps you were thinking of the know-nothings at Quantum or the meddlers at Echostar...

I'm sure if SGI actually cleans up the interface it'll go in but who knows if _that_ will ever happen.

Please also offer some pointers on which parts of the "interface" you feel should be cleaned up.

Although the source is freely available, I have to agree will Richard Stallman's assessment, that the APSL is not as open as the GPL.
The point I think is the most important (in regards to this topic) is the "Possibility of revocation at any time". Which means that even if HFS+ is developed to perfection by the community, Apple can make it proprietary again and start charging fees?

As they say, "The Devil is in the details", which is why it's good that XFS is under the GNU General Public License.

I would recommend anyone to view these type of images on a tile display. At SC 2003, at least EVL and SGI did show dome impressive demo's (in particular, SGI did show some interesting geographic imagery software).

You're overlooking something. Actually, quite a bit....

ext3
Resier/Resier4
JFS
XFS

SGI's FSN - 3d Filesystem Navigator. For IRIX 4.0.1 - 5.3 only. Have fun!

An open-source clone, fsv, is also available on SourceForge.

Competitive with what??

Competitive with MIPS, on a per-CPU basis. What metric did you have in mind?

Have you seen any 64 or 128 cpu Itanium machines running around lately?

Yeah, on SGI's website (first paragraph I linked in a parent post):

"SGI Altix 3000 servers and superclusters are the most scalable Linux(R) systems on the planet, running a single Linux OS image with 64 Intel(R) Itanium(R) 2 processors and up to 4TB of memory."

I hope that helped... :-)

Er, no, since pretty soon there won't be new Irix releases - only Linux. I suppose that might not be the case if SGI has waffled again and gone away from it's very public commitment to Linux going forward.

Yep, looks like the new Itanium stuff is Linux-only. (BTW I'm pretty sure Linux was a better decision than Itanic...heh.) And please, SGI, change the color scheme on those things!

Sounds a lot like PCP, which SGI ported from IRIX to Linux a couple of years ago. I haven't used the Linux version, but the IRIX version of PCP gives point-and-click access to 1000's of kernel metrics.

In any case, it will be a nice addition to Solaris.

Modular installation = better able to match requirements without having to build entire system from scratch = more cost effective solution for some (most?) customers.

SGI's Origin 3000 product range works like this. It's built from bricks, which have different capabilities like processor, I/O bandwidth, storage, etc. You buy the bricks you need to fit your application, and as you need more, you add more bricks. It's a very cool system, and SGI are ahead of the pack when it comes to packing a lot of compute power for little heat waste into small volumes.

Modular installation = better able to match requirements without having to build entire system from scratch = more cost effective solution for some (most?) customers.

SGI's Origin 3000 product range works like this. It's built from bricks, which have different capabilities like processor, I/O bandwidth, storage, etc. You buy the bricks you need to fit your application, and as you need more, you add more bricks. It's a very cool system, and SGI are ahead of the pack when it comes to packing a lot of compute power for little heat waste into small volumes.

http://www.oss.sgi.com

Oh, I agree, and I'd go further - a single image over 512 procs is more than cool, it's very good engineering.

As with many things, the compute problems that get thrown at "supercomputers" or big clusters or whatever, will vary enormously. Some will require lots of CPU but have little need for a large network connection. Others will work much better with this sort of highly-connected system - low-latency, high bandwidth, single system image. There are some parts of problem space that best fit machines like the Altix (or the IRIX equivalent - Origin350/Origin3000).

Oh, I agree, and I'd go further - a single image over 512 procs is more than cool, it's very good engineering.

As with many things, the compute problems that get thrown at "supercomputers" or big clusters or whatever, will vary enormously. Some will require lots of CPU but have little need for a large network connection. Others will work much better with this sort of highly-connected system - low-latency, high bandwidth, single system image. There are some parts of problem space that best fit machines like the Altix (or the IRIX equivalent - Origin350/Origin3000).

Oh, I agree, and I'd go further - a single image over 512 procs is more than cool, it's very good engineering.

As with many things, the compute problems that get thrown at "supercomputers" or big clusters or whatever, will vary enormously. Some will require lots of CPU but have little need for a large network connection. Others will work much better with this sort of highly-connected system - low-latency, high bandwidth, single system image. There are some parts of problem space that best fit machines like the Altix (or the IRIX equivalent - Origin350/Origin3000).

They claim to do quite a bit more on their oss page

SGI have built the largest Linux machine (512 processor machine at NASA) and managed to destroy the previous memory bandwidth record held by NEC, by achieving 1 terabyte/s.

SGI have built the largest Linux machine (512 processor machine at NASA) and managed to destroy the previous memory bandwidth record held by NEC, by achieving 1 terabyte/s.

See. Theyre not cheap though.

Well, maybe not a recent version of Windows anyway.

Looks more like SGI Onyx4
Onyx4

Sun 'Origin' High-Performance Servers and Supercomputers.

If I was a gambling man, I'd put money that the 7-head terminal in Swordfish was running linux or *bsd.

As seen in Jurassic Park

-K

...and the 64-bit SGI O2 wasn't a desktop???

Despite what IBM might claim, SGI's CXFS filesystem is clearly the first (and the most) heterogenous, clustered filesystem available today.

Between the STL and Boost Smart Pointer's, I haven't had a memory leak or buffer overflow in a while.