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Id Auctioning Off SGI That Created Q2 And Q3A
shiwala writes: "id software is auctioning the SGI Origin 2000 used to process all of the map data for Quake II and Quake III Arena." Hemos and I have been debating auctioning off the case that was the 2nd Slashdot (for a six months). I've been trying to find the alpha that was Slashdot for the first 9 months of its life (it served the first million pages: if I only knew that we would serve that many pages every day). Probably donate the $ to the FSF or Project Gutenberg or something. Anyway this id box amuses me: opening bid is $7500.
That would be a neat feat since the Origin 2000 was first released in 1996 which, last time I checked, was less than 5 years ago..... As for woefully archaic, find me another machine that scales to 512 processor in a single system image. Have you ever *really* used an SGI Origin 2000???
Go Badgers! -- #include "std/disclaimer.h"
Microsoft held an auction over the weekend for the computer on which the first Windows was designed. It sold for $.50, was taken into the parking lot, and burned. Bill Gates was seen, later that day, crying over the loss of his 'baby' and screaming 'First my company, then my dearest!'.
====
Crudely Drawn Games
Quick, someone snatch this one up for distributed.net!
What in God's name could they have done to it to make half the processors die? That's an expensive mistake!
Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
Yes - go to oss.sgi.com and look at "Ports". The mips64 port of Linux runs on the Origin 200/2000. In fact, I was running it on an 8p Origin yesterday.
Go Badgers! -- #include "std/disclaimer.h"
I'm surprised they didn't try to auction off Paul Steed!
Lastly, compare Infinite Reality 3 graphics with *any* PC graphics card. The PC crap won't even come *close* to catching it.
Go Badgers! -- #include "std/disclaimer.h"
Yes, thats right, id software is selling the fridge that housed their bevrages while making Quake2 and Quake3.
Starting bid, $7,500.
Note: 4/8 lightbulbs dead.
from Scancode
This machine is mine baby! :)
Just wondering though, why does it say seller pays shipping in the header, then in the description ID is saying I have to pay the shipping???
This did not compute
"a powerful and unexpected ally..."
I think it was about $ 700k.
I wonder what they're replacing it with. If I had one of those things, I'd really hate to see it go - they have panache.
D
----
For an example of a *really* huge cluster of these machines, check out the ASCI project at LANL. They have a cluster of 48 nodes of Origin 2000 where each node has 128 processors. It's not Beowulf, but it's similar in that you can run an MPI job across the cluster.
Go Badgers! -- #include "std/disclaimer.h"
Confusious eyes a trend:
Maybe Corel can auction off Wine machines (that Corel office first emulated on) to make payroll around October time.
Or maybe Confusious will auction off his new Athlon with 256 MB ram that has been rumored to run Star Office 5.2 and Mozilla at the same time (with almost enough memory and MIPS left for Confusious to play Mahjongg)...mmmm...sweeet
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
a shared memory supercomputer, even to today's standard...you may have to add more processors though.
With Apple claiming the G4 as supercomputer, you will actually need to subtract processors from your Origin to make it meet todays standard of supercomputing.
--Shoeboy
Deep space tech (www.deepspeacetech.com) sells refurbished NeXT machines.
"The poet presents his thoughts festively, on the carriage of rhythm; usually because they could not walk" Nietzsche
If it uses anywhere near 30A @ 240 it uses power like a crappy central A/C. Think about 7.2KWh, or at today's residential rates, just over $4k per year.
Do you really get that much computing out of it? I've got a P133 with 6 SCSI drives that I don't run because its just too damned expensive.
It does support multi-module. I've tried it on a two module system and it boots fine. I'll probably try it on a 4 module system at some point in the near future. It does have some *cough* issues, though. The error handling for errors that come from Hub (the ASIC that runs the ccNUMA protocol between node boards). In fact there are some errors that I can't even figure out where the interrupts are going to... But overall, it seems to be fairly stable and supports at least the Base I/O card that runs most of the ports on O2k. Not sure how well it performs on Onyx2 (I'd imagine it won't support Infinite Reality gfx, but it should support booting since the hardware is the same as Origin 2000).
Go Badgers! -- #include "std/disclaimer.h"
What you noticed about the machine plodding through code (but a lot of it at once) is because the point of Origin is for parallel programs. The fastest way to run a program with n threads is on an n processor machine (neglecting other activity). So, if you aren't writing parallel code, you get basically no benefit from a parallel system. The way to speed up single thread code in the supercomputing world is to run on a vector based system.
Go Badgers! -- #include "std/disclaimer.h"
Yeah - that's what I get for posting before I'm fully awake :) There is no Origin 2010. There is no backside cache on Origin. Spinlock support has always been in Origin - that's what the "cc" part of "ccNUMA" gets you.... But the best is where he claims that 1998 was 5 years ago :)
Go Badgers! -- #include "std/disclaimer.h"
Wait till next year. It's going to cost a lot though :) We're working on the clustering software for it now. CrayLink is now called NUMAlink, BTW.
Go Badgers! -- #include "std/disclaimer.h"
Think about the number of levels in Quake 2 or Quake 3, and the number of times they need to be compiled before they're complete, and that's quite a bit of computing time. Especially when the game has deadlines, and levels often have to be rebuild due to changing requirements/features of the game engine. Level designers who are designing levels for an in-progress game will tell you that it's much harder (and levels require many more builds) than when you're working with a finished, stable game engine.
There are, what, 50 maps in Quake 2? If each one takes a couple of hours to build, that's a little over 4 days to build them all a single time. It's possible that the tools they used on that Origin 2000 were more accurate and slower (comparitively) than the Intel/win32 equivalents, so that could require more computing power also. You can see how it would all add up to a lot of computing time... and obviously you don't want to be building levels on the same machine the designer is still trying to work on...
got any good urls for info on this?
.brad
Drink more tea
organicgreenteas.com
flesh eating ants records
Yeah, that's the ticket.
ok, I'll take your word for it then.
I'm sorry, I had thought that you were trolling.
-----
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
It must be Erwin's cousin.
--Have a Johsonville brat.
8) SETI@Home cruncher 9) I am my own team for the Distributed Net challenge 10) Maybe I can finally fix the code to Unreal. Maybe not 11) Put it in the closet? My patch pannel is in there! 12) Keep MIT dorm rooms cool in Winter. 13) Surprise, Windows doesn't run. 14) CPUs out? Who put the Mountain Dw too close to the machine. 15)This article is already 4 days old. DO I honestly feel that anyone is going to read my post?
Here is one of the .plan anouncements that first pointed to it, and
here are a few pictures of the actual machine.
I'm sure somebody will get a good deal on it.
how much was one of them things when it was spankin new?
________
This is a really interesting point!
... am I feeling ... lucky?)
...
Now, there *are* professional bidders already, of course, but they're not something the ordinary Joe gets to use. There are specialized professional bidders in all kinds of esoteric things, but of course that's not what you're talking about. The interesting thing about near-simultaneous, wide-ranging electronic communications is that the level at which it's practical to have things like this creeps lower -- you don't have to be as rich to use such services if you're paying incrementally in combination with other people (services like ubid.com), and the actual bidding services can be done cheaper and for products for which it wouldn't have made sense a few years ago. (priceline.com, for instance -- groceries etc).
Even pricewatch.com can be seen as a sort of reverse auction, where you can say "Gee, I'm looking for a D-Link PCMCIA modem / ethernet card. Wonder who can give me the best deal on one?" -- BAM a few search terms later, you find one ($128, as of yesterday). Much nicer than trying to sort through dozens of sites for a few bucks' difference.
And the new-economy thing I want to see most is the chance to "roll for more" as featured in R. Heinlein's "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress." It's been a few years, but I believe the basic concept is, when buying anything from a meal to a motel room, it's traditional to pay slightly more in exchange for the chance to win it for free instead. It's gambling, so the house wins (in aggregate) but the player sometimes wins, and to the player wins large. (I'd like that at Motel 6, for instance
Of course, given current ridiculous attitudes about gambling this isn't likely to happen, but
simon
"Hey Carlito, r'membah me? Benny Blanco from the Bronx!"
Enditallnow
Not necissarily -- quake 2 certainly wasn't a very good game.
Whole new services might even appear where people pay fixed fees to 'professional bidders' who would take care of the whole bidding process for them. This would appeal to people who just want to buy stuff, and would create a whole new career.
... you mean the way stock exchanges and commodity markets work right now, for instance?
Errrr
It looks to me like you're predicting that once we disintermediate everything we're going to find it's TOO DAMN MUCH HASSLE to live without the dissed intermediaries and we're going to reintermediate right back.
I think I'm with you on that, actually. Now, how can we make an IPO out of this?
.. To prop open the door to the barn! And I'd use the 8 dead processors to make up some funky earings.. and the 8 live processors to.. um.. Process Map Data.. Yeah.
-
Starsucks
And no, I haven't rendered a 3D game myself (though I have written a few simple Open GL programs). However, I *do* work with Origin hardware and software *every* day since my group is responsible for kernel support on it.
I will ask some people Monday, though, about the 2010 and I'll post more then (if anyone's actually heard of it...)
Go Badgers! -- #include "std/disclaimer.h"
Here Is the spec results of a Origin 200 360mhz R12k.
Here is a dell PIII 733.
You'll find the PIII system has better intger proformance and the Origin better floating point proformance. But, the tests are run only using _one_ cpu... and from I read in previous posts the origin is focusing on really fast IO.
Wow! iD sells an item and they don't even have to pay for advertising.
"Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely."
Offer not valid in UT,
Aw... come on, why not?
Because IBMs, like coffee, porn, and enjoying life, are against the Mormon religion. He doesn't want to face the wrath of one of the richest cults in the world.
--
Dude, I'm sorry for you. This was a troll and you fed him.
i have a 192 CPU O2K where i work..usually we have 60 or so users, load average is around 20 or so. those are 192 250MHz R10Ks. usually with a load average of 20 the machine is about as responsive as a 300MHz P-II running linux (most of the processors are unloaded even at a load of 20). however, you can start a helluva lot of background jobs and its still as responsive as a 300MHz P-II. performance doesnt degrade, but it doesnt get faster either. also simple things like loading files, displaying directories etc are much faster than my 10K RPM ultra scsi drive under linux. its a bit weird initially - i was expecting this chunk of massive hardware to burn thru all my code like it didnt exist instead of plodding along - but it plods along with a helluva lot of bandwidth.
I remember, several years ago, a posting on comp.sys.next.marketplace. It may have been Carmack. They were selling off their original NeXT hardware, which had been used to develop DOOM.
I still have my color NeXT machine, and it served many years of use. When I replaced it with a 200MHz Pentium Pro system (running RH4.1), the PPro machine was roughly 20x faster than the old NeXT machine.
If I had the money I'd still be interested in an SGI that can create games that make that much money. Who cares if the games suck ass as long as you collect the bucks.
-- v --
The web site for that SGI-made beauty is here (http://www.sgi.com/origin/2000/), and a picture of it is here (http://www.sgi.com/origin/2000/ima g es/2400L.jpg).
There was a time when paintings and sculptures were overvalued, then it was celebrity hand-offs. Now the geeks have the money and it's machines otherwise headed for the scrap pile that will sell for a lot of money.
I'm waiting for the Jon Katz article about how the distribution of wealth among geeks suffering from a post-Columbine syndrome has led to the artificial valuation of tools of technology.
Mmmm.. Donuts
Excuse me? Read that tagline up top again "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters". Id Software helped launch a gaming revolution that has had a signifigant impact on the computer graphics industry and which has brought many new people into the field. I personally know several programmers and web application developers who got their start by coding mods or putting together fan pages for the Doom and Quake series of games. Id Software is a company that many 'nerds' are interested in, and therefore news about them is 'News for Nerds'. While this isn't a gaming site and I'd probably get upset if they started reporting on every new mod release and .plan comment made by one of the Id employees, Slashdot is entirely within its scope when it reports on 'out of the ordinary' happenings withing the company. Selling off an Origin 2000 supercomputer that played a hand in developing two of their most popular games definitely qualifies as 'out of the ordinary'. Besides, there are no rules outlining what IS and ISN'T acceptable content here. If Taco wants to post a story about his cats furry butt, he has that right. If the other members of the /. team don't see reason to censure him, then he can go on posting whatever he sees fit. You aren't paying for this service, so why are you complaining about it? If you don't like it, find somewhere else to post. If you really want to express your opinion, or think you could do a better job, go download the source code and build your own site.
There is nothing so pathetic as seeing a beautiful young theory roughed up by a tough gang of facts.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
No it's not.
"Lastly, compare Infinite Reality 3 graphics with *any* PC graphics card. The PC crap won't even come *close* to catching it."
In case anyone thinks this is nonsense, remember that the low-end single user workstation that SGI recently released had a custom made souped up 64Mb nVidia Quadro card on it that makes your average DDR GeForce look slow. That thing is fast...
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
1: This thing is HUGE. Your floor might not hold it up. 2: Heat. 3: It's power requirements are probably sufficient that you can't use it in a residential zone. 4: Even if you tried, it probably draws more than your wall outlet will put out.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Sounds pretty nifty, I have to wonder what the memory architecture will look like in those beasts. Think if I drop by SGI they'll let me play with it? :-) (j/k)
GPL: Free as in will
Do they wipe it when they auction it off? ;)
Or do we finally get their sgi compile tools?
I know quite a few mappers with 64 processor sgi machines that want to know
"And real life has warts and smelly feet" -- Paul Jaquays, id Software
"it would probably end up in a trash" If you know people throwing out systems with a second-hand going rate of $15k-plus (see other posts), then I suggest you get dumpster diving asap. When id got rid of their NeXT machines (wonderful, lovely things that they were, with officially the nicest GUI ever) they gave them away because the underlying 16MHz 68020 processors weren't actually up much in comparison to current machines. This one is a bit different - I'm sure that if this was so out of date that it was worthless they wouldn't have used it as the main number cruncher for Q3A.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Gee, I thought programmers created Quake. Well, I guess artifical intelligence is a further than I thought.
-- v --
Poll: how many people are interested in this SGI box?
Caffeine underflow
Brain dumped
Poll Mastah
Ok, I lied. It turns out it's just an internal SGI thing for now. Check out http://reality.sgi.com/rhess_engr/q3a/irix/ for more info. "Any Day Now" is the official party line. :)
-Chris
ladies and gentlemen...i, FluXraD, am auctioning off the first ever computer i installed linux on
a beautiful IBM Craptiva with an enormous 64 meg of RAM, a beautifully stylish mobo with onboard crystal sound and an ATI Rage video card (you guessed it: the 2meg) This beautiful desktop unit is fully functional, it can be used as BOTH a paperweight for those outside offices, or a projectile. Either way, you'll be a winner with this baby!
Bidding will start next week...reserve is a bargain at a low low $32k. (Make checks payable to the FluXraD retirement fund. Seller makes no guarantee of implied warranty or viability of said IBM Craptiva. Purchaser takes product as is with no refunds unless expressly stated. Upon return a %100 stocking fee may be charged the buyer. Offer not valid in UT, VT, TX and The People's Republic of China)
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
That's about the diagnosis I expected. I'm planning on installing on a 3-module Onyx2 system (plus an IR2 graphics head, but that certainly won't be doing much... unless xf86 supports things that I don't know it does... :> ) and on an Onyx2 deskside, both in a couple weeks. I just want to see how it goes and how everything looks.
:)
Then I'll work on forcing gr_osview to work and turning on the distributed.net client so we can REALLY see how good it's doing.
-Chris
I would like to announce the auctioning of the first computer I ever used to chat in an adult IRC chat room. It's a Mac 512ke that works fine, but the keyboard is a bit... sticky.
Back on topic....
Could the Auction will become the defacto engine behind the new economy?
In a way, we'd come full circle. In the beginning, purchases were bartered for. Two people would negotiate back and forth until the price was agreed on. Eventually, fixed prices started to replace this. Money became the accepted tender, and everyone was happy.
Now, however, it's becoming easy to do the bartering without the social interaction, bluffing, etc. Stores could set an opening bid on the things they wanted to sell. When demand went up, the prices would go up, but not because they raised prices, instead because customers would bid against each other.
Eventually, people might bid against each other from whatever evolves from web-enabled cell phones or bluetooth devices. The winner would get the goods right then, and the loser would need to wander around the store waiting for the next bidding cycle to start on that item. On the plus side, the customer might be able to snake great bargains if they come in at off peak hours, reducing the mob scene you find in stores between 5-7PM. People who needed to shop at peak hours would pay for the convenience, bidding against other people of like-mind.
Whole new services might even appear where people pay fixed fees to 'professional bidders' who would take care of the whole bidding process for them. This would appeal to people who just want to buy stuff, and would create a whole new career.
Maybe it's our destiny to go back to our roots, economically...
...for Apple to buy SGI. They wouldn't have to redesign the machines.
Well, to answer question 1, SGI wants $20K for a used system with fewer, slower processors ( Link here ).
--
Email address is real.
According to the 1998 review of a Sun Enterprise 10000 at UnixReview (previously Performance Computing)
If this wasn't coming from a well known source, (i.e.: "id") it would probably end up in a trash or (hopfuly) in a charity.
I belive, "id" would server it's community better if they gave it away for to an art school -- does "id" realy needs the money?!
-- George
Back in the good times
What are you talking about, mister 203477?
It sure doesn't look like you've been here all that long, does it?
-----
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
heh. Are you sure that you can afford the 7500 watts it sucks... and the air conditioning to get rid of that 7500 watts? (Another ~10000 or so watts)
-----
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
I'll give you $20 for it :)
I wonder if SGI will start putting those Cray-Link interfaces on the SGI/Linux boxen :-) Now THAT would make a cluster... Not likely in any case, but we can dream.
GPL: Free as in will
You are such a fuckin idiot.
notimeforsigs
The user number in my old account (which I changed because I decided to post to /. with my real name) is under 10k. I've been around here far longer than you. I know what I'm talking about.
Are you adequate?
"SUPER XXX HARDCORE PORN, previousily Slashdot.org."
Then again, how many people would notice the difference? ;)
-- ~Can money pay for all the days I've lived awake, but half asleep?~
>Back in the good times, whenever the editors
>were thinking of making any changes to the
>system,
To which emmons rightfully points out that it's userID is GREATER THAN 200K.
It has also, in the past, claimed to remember people being "out to get" shengan in the days before his (apparantly temporary(unfortunately)) banishment from the editorial pool.
Now, my userID is in the 62K range, and I joined
Clearly, no one with a 200K+ userID would have been around then. UNLESS it is a troll. "estanliao martinez" is a such a troll. It is a made up character, a fraud. You should all have realised THAT much from its posting history.
A while back, an anonymous coward was circulating a link to "martinez"'s postings in the illicit "inchfan" forum, announcing the creation of the character. I, unfortunately, lost that link. AC, if you're there, a repost would be really cool.
Not only all that, it SLIPS OUT OF CHARACTER when you get it pissed off! Examine this quote from it in the following story (It is archived, so you'll have to scroll down, or search for its username):
http://slashdot.org/articles/00/06/28/1832229.s
>I repeat, I have *taught* logic. I have studied
>First Order Logic, Dynamic Logic, Modal Logic,
>Hybrid Logic, Type Theory, Model Theoretic
>Semantics, Substructural Logics, Feature Logics,
>and some more. At grad level. I'd advise you to
>not take my knowledge here for granted.
Note, in particular, the last sentance. Now, where have we heard THAT before? Which phony personality did it fall back to?
Everybody remember st-st-st-steven w-w-w-woston, of "jjjjulius games", who just HAPPENS to be close, personal friends with just about EVERY major player in the industry and community, from John Carmack to Scott Draker to Linus? Gets previews of EVERY bit of new hardware? And has his contributed code to EVERYthing fron Doom to Quake3 to the Linux kernel itself? And who'se character is EVERY bit as condescending as "estanislao martinez"?
It is baiting all of you. Quit biteing.
Oh, if only Slashdot had killfiles....
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
Imagine all the people...
And the best part is... Q3A for IRIX just went alpha today. So you can have your quake and eat it, too.
-Chris
The first personal/home/kit computer ever (the unit that got stolen at the airport)
The prinout containing the first free software Bill Gates ever used. [ Known at the time as PD Basic ]
The 386 Linus used to compile the first version of Linux.
But getting sereous... Who cares what it was used for... It's still quite a powerful box...
Some upgrades and pollish and it'd kick butt.
I'd put in a bid if I thought I had a chance
I'd offer the first computer I used but... that was shipped back to Commodore back in 1979.
I don't want Slashdots first servers...
I want the last retired Slash server....
harddisk blanked of course....
I don't actually exist.
It takes considerably more processing power to compile the original graphics than it takes to render it once everything is compiled.
Someone sat down and worked on all those details to make every player look human. Thats a lot of work. All your PC dose is overlay a skin on a frame. Someone had to make that skin and frame.
Also when develuping the game your working a few years ahead.
Say your working on a game today. Your target computer is a Pentium 5. Obveously such a machine dosn't exist. So you need something equally powerful.
The first versions of the game will not work well. A lot of hacks. A lot of unknowns. Later you go back over the code clean it up and make it work reliably. But when the code is running slow you need to run "at speed".
There are quite a few reasons to use a computer that is far byond the target machine.
In IDs case it was probably an upgrade consern. They didn't want to have to upgrade that machine to often. It was after all used for two versions of Quake and while it can be upgraded they probably need something a tad more powerful than a computer than a top end PC two years from now. This won't cut it.
I don't actually exist.
1. What's the going rate for one of these things (are they charging a premium for the sentimental value?)
2. What's do they use as a replacement? (Probably "a cluster of ..."?)
3. Anybody have benchmarks for this sucker?
4. Does that come with a color monitor? (grin, Dilbert reference)
Eeeh... I see the point :)
First no ID won't make a proffit. The cost of the replacment system will eat up any proffits ID makes.
So really there is no money to be made. It's a cost reduction yeah but it isn't enough.
ID would probably make more on goodwill in a donation of this bad boy that they would in capital from a sale.
But... It wouldn't benifit the FSF much at all and it takes up a lot of space.
It may not even be welcomed at the FSF.
What they need is new hardware not fast hardware. ID can write Pentium 5 code using a fast super compuyer FSF must have a real P5 and specs or it won't make much of a diffrence.
At issue. the FSF needs to do stuff like optomise the GCC compiler to run under new processors. The code isn't slow itself and still compiles and runs reasonably under a 386.
ID however is working on next generation graphics technology and needs computers as powerful as the ones we'll be using 2 to 3 years from now.
FSF needs to be able to compile and test P5 optomise code on a real P5.
ID just needs something as fast as so they can test the engen.
Once ID is readly to ship they'll rely on a compuler that has allready been optomised for the latest PCs. ID dosn't need to worry about that layer of technology.
In short the FSF would probably frown on a donation of such a box as it's unlikely anyone using such a box would need free software. But they'd be more than happy to accept a NeXT box as such a box would welcome new free software.
This auction gives ID a bit more publicity than a gift to the FSF would...
That is unless we have a folow up story about how the FSF office has this big old obsolete box waisting space and they can't afford to get rid of it.
And that is why ID should never donate such a system to the FSF... To much potental ill will
I don't actually exist.
We don't need it.
We already have 192 of these, with 16 *working* processors each.
Sandia National Laboratory might be interested, though...
I was told CalTech and Wolfram had a disagreement over who owned the machine, and Caltech moved it to the most inaccessable place they owned to try to keep it. (I take no responsibility for the accuracy of this statement.)
Another cute feature was the reel to reel tape drive - an old but still used technology at the time. They had a particularly old drive, because all the new ones would auto-feed the tape for you using suction, and they wouldn't work at ~4200m altitude.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
"Comes autographed by the id development team and an official certificate of authenticity!"
I have an Alpha that is the identical model to the one that ran Slashdot for the first 9 months of its life, and served the first million pages.
Make me an offer today, and you too might be
able to own one of these phenomenal Multias.
D
Share data. Share code. Share ideas. Share the wealth.
http://stockfilter.org
I got this all from a small booklet (Product Guide) that I got while on a field trip to SGI in highschool 2 years ago... As for comparing against a dual PIII 800, I'm not sure what the R10K's can do... they're not mega-powerful 64-bit processors but the machine concentrates on the I/O bandwidth more than anything...
the real at&t mix
I don't know what we sell these things for used, but new, a 16p Origin 2000 lists (though sales generally discounts at various percentages that I don't claim to understand) for around $80,000 the last time I checked. It is fairly powerful - you get a *lot* of memory bandwidth in these things (800 megabytes/second between nodes where a node is 2 processors, an I/O channel and a bunch 'o RAM). I would imagine that it would easily take out a PIII 800, dual or otherwise. Also, remember that Irix scales *very* well (though this is running an *old* version) - 16p is very very close to 16 times as fast as 1p.
Go Badgers! -- #include "std/disclaimer.h"
Actually, it DOES run linux. Or at least, there's partial kernel support for it. Download a 2.3 kernel and take a peek inside.. there's support for SGI IP27 systems. IP27's are Onyx2 and Origin 2000 boxes. Sure, it may not support multiple-module systems, but since this thing has half the node cards dead, you're set anyway.
-Chris
As an aspiring geek (not smart enough for full geekdom) I'm kinda clueless about computer programming. I love Q2 and Q3, so this article is of interest to me, but I'm a bit confused about something. Why is such a large computer needed to program something that's easily playable on a PC? They make map making utilities for the end users, so I figure it can't be THAT powerhungry... thanks
if my 2500w electric heater (Australian houses mostly don't have central heating) doesnt blow my power point I bet that wouldnt. Your telling me that thing is more than 2500w? right?
Well I just put my highschool mathematics to use & I figure that a powerpoint will really need to have to cope with 2 electric heaters as that system would be about 5 to 6 thousand watts. So I got my electric heater (2500w) & the fanheater out of the other room (2400w in high) & plugged 'em in the same powerpoint with a double adaptor & had no problems what so ever. So yes I think I'll be ok. Its good we have 240v in Oz rather than the crapy 100v mains in the US. It helps keeps the amps low & it means all the wiring is up to par.
Well it shure would be nice to own one of these babies. I would use it as an applicationserver for me andmy roommates (wont need to buy another machine in te next coule of years ;-).
But I want to know what they intend to do with teh money, will they donate it, or is this just a way to make space in the serverroom for new machines and make somemoney since I belife they will get more for it than it's worth just because it was used to create Quake.
--Ulrich
On no accounts allow a Vogon to read poetry at you
>With the way Unix does load averages, a load of 20 means that you are running 20 processors full boar and the other 172 processors are just sitting around running idle.
So what does this mean when my single CPU system reaches a load average of two? If a load average of one means that the system is running its single CPU at full boar, does that mean a load average of two is secretly using some processor in my machine that I never knew existed? What about the few times I've seen a single CPU system read 50 or so load average?
I was once told that the load average indicates how many processes are waiting for CPU time.
Just wondering,
Geoff
Titanic rendered on linux ??
As far as I know titanic was rendered using newtek's lightwave.. and that's not available on linux (unfortunately :-)
btw it was rendered on Alpha's
Learn about pinball machines on www.flippers.be
From Ebay:
Um, no, it's not running an old version. This would actually be pretty recent.
*sputter*
Of course it would. No, you can't play HalfLife or run MS-Word on it (not that either of those benefit from a dual P3 over a single P3), but for graphic rendering, or CAD processing, or molecular modeling, or VR work, or databases, (or... etc.) this thing would beat the hell out of any x86 machine you could think of conjuring up. Intel's architecutre simply doesn't compare.
-Matthead
Rosebud!
Wah!