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Supercomputer To Use Optical Router

Posted by timothy on from the is-the-computer dept.

Izmunuti writes "From a NYTimes article: 'Highlighting a radical departure in the design of the fastest computers, the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology plans to announce on Monday that it will use an optical router designed by a Texas company as the heart of a campus-wide supercomputer that will be woven together with optical fibers.'"

2 of 174 comments (clear)

  1. Re:How times change... by Soko · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I think perhaps you're a bit confused, my friend. It _is_ digital in that it's sending information as numbers, it's just carrying those numbers on an analogue signal.

    The medium isn't important in digital, it's the message. Whether I send you a sequence of 20,000,000 numbers via carrier pidgeon or blue/green modulated laser light isn't important (other than latency) - it's the fact that those 20,000,000 numbers got from A to B via some means other than picking them up and carrying them.

    So, we are all digital now, and have no need to go back.

    Soko

    --
    "Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
  2. Steve Wallach by bstadil · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Don't forget Steve Wallach he was one of the protagonists in Tracy Kidder's Pulitzer winning book The Soul of a new Machine about the 32bit Data General next generation machine Nova that was going to leapfrog Digital's Vax. An excellent read by the way.

    He still drives a Porche with Convex as number plate.

    --
    Help fight continental drift.