Student and Professor Build Budget Supercomputer

Luke writes "This past winter Calvin College professor Joel Adams and then Calvin senior Tim Brom built Microwulf, a portable supercomputer with 26.25 gigaflops peak performance, that cost less than $2,500 to construct, becoming the most cost-efficient supercomputer anywhere that Adams knows of. "It's small enough to check on an airplane or fit next to a desk," said Brom. Instead of a bunch of researchers having to share a single Beowulf cluster supercomputer, now each researcher can have their own."

Comments

Can it run vista?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems like Windows Vista needs a supercomputer to run properly.

Re:Newbie translation please?

[Anonymous Coward]

However, by utilizing pipelining, reordering and multiple execution units, a single core may be working on upwards of 50 instructions at once.

You know about computers, so now I want to teach you how to write.

First, "utilize" is almost never an ok word. Try substituting "use."

Second, you are utilizing/using a gerund. Verb the gerund and you can throw away a useless word.

By pipelining, reordering, and having multiple execution units, however, a single core may be working on upwards of 50 instructions at once.

Mmm.. much better.

Third, change "on upwords of 50" can turn into "dozens of" and you've got a nice sentence.

Intel's Laser computer?

[rossy]

I have been following photonics for the last 20 years, and today I came across something that seemed it needed to be slashdotted. "This development makes evident that Intel's anticipated Laser Processor is more than just a rumor."
http://ightfeet.com So are electrons obsolete yet? Guess we will have to see if this new cool optical server ships on time. My guess is that we will soon see the light;) -- R