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Small Supercomputer, XPC, Notebook, and Gaming Thingy

Posted by jamie on from the four-in-one dept.

kidgenius, SpinnerBait, and anonymous readers wrote in with four fun tales of small devices doing cool things. IBM has built a supercomputer the size of a TV, using 1000 PPC-based CPUs. Shuttle recently began shipping their AMD Athlon 64 based XPC, the size of a breadbox. Sony has a new 0.4" thick VAIO notebook (scroll down). And a European company is about to introduce the Gametrac, a handheld WinCE gaming gadget with 3D, Bluetooth, SMS, MP3 playback, MPEG4 video playback, camera, and -- interestingly -- GPS tracking. "The system allows the parents to establish 'fences,' which, when entered by the child, cause a notification to be sent to the parents in the form of either an SMS message or an email." Hmmm.

5 of 142 comments (clear)

  1. Zodiac! by Cpt_Kirks · · Score: 3, Informative

    Damn, that thing looks like a Zodiac.

    BTW, Fedex says they are delivering mine this evening.

    Now, we do the dance of joy! Hup! Ho! Hay!

  2. More Info on IBM Machine by obsidianpreacher · · Score: 5, Informative

    There's more to the story than the simple Reuters blurb that the CNN/Money article above shows ... internetnews.com has got a more in-depth article about this.

    Also interesting to note is that IBM says this is the same processors that will be in next-gen consoles from Nintendo and Sony that are due out next year ... but I thought that wasn't gonna happen ...?

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    1. Re:More Info on IBM Machine by Wesley+Felter · · Score: 2, Informative

      IBM says this is the same processors that will be in next-gen consoles from Nintendo and Sony that are due out next year

      This is not true. BlueGene/L uses custom processors based on the PowerPC 440.

  3. Re:Hah, Apple beat them to it. by bsharitt · · Score: 2, Informative

    Hi, I'd like to return this "i", and no I don't have a receipt.

    It's just a cube, not an iCube.

  4. Re:1000 processors? Probably 400h. by jared_hanson · · Score: 2, Informative

    1000 processors is 3E8h.

    Computers dont like C, C++, or even assembly for that matter. All they understand is 1s and 0s. Languages are created for the ease of the human programmers. It is the job of the compiler/assembler to translate them to binary.

    Computers dont understand hex either, that is just convenient shorthand for programmers. Decimal is as well. Both are a simple conversion for the compiler. Incidentally, if you ever write a math library, I'd suggest you use decimal constants, as it will make it easier for someone else to modify or improve the library.

    Computers, programming languages, decimal, hexidecimal are all created for humans, to make things easier. You are arguing for the reverse scenario, and don't even get that right. If you want to be a machine, talk only in binary.

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