USAF Unveils Supercomputer Made of 1,760 PS3s

digitaldc writes with this excerpt from Gamasutra: "The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) has connected 1,760 PlayStation 3 systems together to create what the organization is calling the fastest interactive computer in the entire Defense Department. The Condor Cluster, as the group of systems is known, also includes 168 separate graphical processing units and 84 coordinating servers in a parallel array capable of performing 500 trillion floating point operations per second (500 TFLOPS), according to AFRL Director of High Power Computing Mark Barnell."

Comments

So...

[KublaiKhan]

Does that mean it can run Crysis in HD, then?

Re:So...

[Monkeedude1212]

Of course not...

its running linux!

I don't know if WINE does HD.

This post started as a joke - I don't know what it is now.

Re:So...

[arcsimm]

Yes.

Re:So...

[CronoCloud]

Wine doesn't run on PS3's because WINE Is Not an Emulator and requires an x86 CPU. And even if it did run on PPC, the display output on the PS3 under Linux is unaccelerated framebuffer.

Re:So...

[stonewallred]

So, has anyone told the Federal prosecutor in the region about the DMCA violations going on by the USAF?

Re:So...

[anomaly256]

Unless you jailbreak and use AsbestOS. Just sayin'

Re:So...

[Dr Max]

I thought running another operating system on the ps3 was illegal. is Sony going to sue the USAF now.

Re:So...

[3vi1]

Wine won't run on a PS3 - Wine Is Not an Emulator, and the PS3 doesn't use an x86 CPU.

Re:So...

[vandamme]

The IG would come down on them like the proverbial ton of bricks. They are not using it to pirate movies, they're doing research into various things that need a supercomputer.

Don't Update

[PaddyM]

Don't get the firmware update that gets rid of Linux. OOPS!

Re:Don't Update

[Anonymous Coward]

More importantly, don't let any of them wear out...Seriously, the USAF should sue Sony to get replacement machines that *will* boot Linux!!!...and make Sony sell them to the rest of us (along with the software PS2 emulation, if they won't give us the Emotion Engine chips for hardware emulation).

Re:Don't Update

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, what is the value of 1760 PS3s without the stolen feature? They're sitting on a GOLD MINE. Isn't that the kinda thing that should be privatized?

Re:Don't Update

[colordev]

Good downgrades are available as Sony is loosing the PS3 jailbreak fight by a technical knockout

Re:Don't Update

[HazMat 79]

Well if ya just guess they paid $400 for each PS3 that would put it north of $700,000 for PS3s alone. Not counting the other GPUs and servers. Just wondering because I have never been in the market for a supercomputer, but how much would it cost for a "normal" supercomputer.

Re:Don't Update

[C_L_Lk]

10 times that much or more... building a computer with 500 TFLOPS for under $1mil is a pretty good deal no matter how you look at it.

Re:Don't Update

[palegray.net]

As of 2007, IBM's Blue Gene/P system cost $1.3M per rack, and the Blue Gene/L cost $800K (per a PCWorld story entitled http://www.pcworld.com/article/135334/ibm_drops_price_on_supercomputer.html). However, it should be noted that the hardware cost of such systems doesn't reflect the total configuration and operating cost. Many news outlets have reported on the favorable overall cost effectiveness of building supercomputing clusters with PS3s. Yellow Dog Linux has features specifically designed to support the Cell/B.E. CPU.

Re:Don't Update

[gman003]

700K is cheap for a supercomputer. Prices can be as high as $125 million (IBM Roadrunner), $88 million (Tianhe-I), even $700 million (Earth Simulator). Hell, Tianhe-I uses $20 million in power and maintenance per year. Yeah, all those computers are several times above the scale of this one, but the price per teraflop is probably pretty good.

Re:Don't Update

[Narishma]

They should also force them to give every one of us either a pony or a pink unicorn.

Re:Don't Update

[i_b_don]

I wouldn't say "no matter how you look at it".

Super computing is also a lot about pushing those large quantities of data around and the programming that allows you to use that theoretical 500 TFLOPS of power. You could end up with something that can do significant calculations but just uses 100baseT to push data around. That's just isn't very efficient for many uses of super computers, and certainly not a world class number cruncher. Just to give you something to compare it against, super computers today are looking to have 10 Tbps switches on backplanes. That's 10 Tbps of information passing through the switch hooking up a rack of servers.

IMHO, hardware super computer engineering hurdles are about four things: processing power, data pipelines, memory, and dissipating heat. You can't fail any one of those four if you want something usable. (Software engineering hurdles I'll leave to experts as I am not one.)

d

Re:Don't Update

[zakeria]

Do you really think they use the same firmware as a regular PS3? come on!

Re:Don't Update

[Gravatron]

I'd imagine sony could give them the old firmware, and they could just load it off a thumbrdirve.

Re:Don't Update

[hairyfeet]

Hi MR AC! I think what you and many of the other posters are missing is that having Linux on PS3 was BAD for Sony and here is why: Game consoles are traditionally sold using what is more commonly known as the "razor and blades" model, in that consoles are sold at a loss and they then make up for that loss PLUS make their profits on the blades, that is the licenses for games and peripherals

Now as I'm sure someone will point out the PS3 is no longer sold at a loss (does anybody know what they make? $5? Just because it isn't sold as a loss doesn't mean it is making anything either) but since we know these are running Linux that means every single one of those 1760 PS3s cost Sony money that they will NEVER make back. Because I seriously doubt the USAF is gonna be picking up 1760 copies of Little Big Planet or Move controllers.

So as you can see allowing Linux on the PS3, which allowed it to be used as a non gaming machines was a seriously BAD idea on Sony's part, and they were very right to kill it. Now I would agree that killing the support in older ones through an update was wrong, but not offering it on newer machines was the right idea. Imagine if they kept Linux and setups like the USAF took off: What good would selling hundreds of thousands of PS3s do Sony when not a single one of those machines will be buying any games or Blu Ray movies? Why would game publishers care about a system whose biggest selling point was lab work? So I'm sorry FOSS guys, but in the end it had less to do with Linux and everything to do with business. Sony is already in last place, having tons of machines locked away in labs don't help their bottom line any.

Re:Don't Update

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, the controllers that came with the PS3 could have been sold for another $45 a piece or 1760X45 ~= $80,000.

Re:Don't Update

[anomaly256]

You make it sound like they are unable to produce new machines, or that those 1760 machines sold equals 1760 actual gamer customers who now won't buy a ps3. Spurious logic sorry, although I do understand your point about the business model in use.

Re:Don't Update

[rhyder128k]

The publicity is worth quite a lot to them. It gets the PS3 a few mentions in the press in a context that suggests that the hardware is still considered extremely powerful. The mystical computational capability of the Cell is a large part of how Sony has promoted the PS3.

Re:Don't Update

[hairyfeet]

Sorry if I didn't make myself clear, I'll try to explain my position: We know that the machines sold with Linux were sold at a loss so even if they are making $10 or whatever on a machine we know for a fact that those 1760 PS3s were sold at a loss. Now they are never gonna make back that money, not today, not ever. it's gone with the wind.

Now I would argue that even if they aren't being sold at a loss they certainly aren't making enough profit on PS3 hardware alone to sustain their business and fund R&D, wouldn't you agree? If this is the case then allowing the continued use of Linux on PS3s is ultimately a bad business decision, since those machines won't be buying games, won't be buying controllers, and won't be helping their place in the markets, since game developers care about selling games, not who has the highest FLOP rating.

So what I was trying to say wasn't that they are incapable of producing new machines, it was that ultimately they would lose because the hardware alone isn't enough to sustain them under the current razor and blades model. just look at how many places are selling sub $150 X360s. With THAT kind of pressure you know their margins have to be razor thin at best, and to have large quantities of machines gobbled up to be locked away in some lab really doesn't help them, either in the short run cash wise, nor in the long run with game sales and marketshare. So I think if you look at it from that perspective you'll agree that Linux on the PS3 was simply a bad business decision all around, and I'm sorry if I was unclear on that.

Re:Don't Update

[tius]

Crap. I discovered that my wife had updated the firmware for her dance game. Now I have to ensure my CBE simulation codes get ported to OpenCL.

Thanks Sony, ya bunch of tossers!

Re:Don't Update

[asticia]

No, you get it from wrong point of view. Seriously, if Sony was smart enough they could use this as marketing, or even sell this kind of solution to potential customers interested in entry-level supercomputing. Just like nVidia does with dozen of graphic cards bond together and sold as Tesla. (Only problem is - I think - Sony is smart enough, but they would get their fingers slapped by IBM or whoever made those chips that they are competing in business with them now.)

Re:Don't Update

[Psykechan]

The worst business decision was removing a feature. You can argue about how ever having Linux on the PS3 was a bad business decision but the point is they did it. Removal of the feature in the redesigned units was acceptable but they removed it from existing units.

Linux on the PS3 allowed Sony to have free publicity news articles every time a supercomputer was mentioned. They may not have made any direct profit on those units but they did get to benefit from economics of scale. Heck, this is a company that reports units sitting on store shelves as part of the installed userbase when telling developers the number of systems sold. It's almost a guarantee that they reported several thousand lab systems as well.

Then there are people like me who purchased a PS3 despite owning a 360 because I could use Linux on it; it taking the place of a Blu-ray player, game system, and a hobby computer in the crowded entertainment center. Sony made money from their 'bad' business decision from me.

I purchased a couple dozen games and several blu-ray discs before March's announcement of firmware 3.30. Since then, my PS3 is no longer a game system. I can't buy new games because they will demand new firmware. I can't even play some of the games I own due to no online support. Sony screwed me and everyone like me who was stupid enough to trust them.

Well no more. Removal of a feature in existing units is betrayal. I have been a Playstation customer since 9/9/1995 and it ended 4/1/2010. I tell people my story when they ask me about buying a game system (which is quite a few actually) and to date, Sony has lost at least 10 sales to Microsoft and Nintendo because of it. Now tell me again what the bad business decision was.

Re:Don't Update

[hairyfeet]

Uhhh...did you miss my original post when I said "removing the feature from existing units was wrong" and a bad move? I agree 100% that removing an already existing feature from units out in the wild is seriously stupid and as your post points out the bad will alone probably cost them hundreds, maybe even thousands of sales, which being last place they could ill afford. To me it is just further proof that Sony has been insolated so long in their "happy Sony proprietary land" that they just don't get it. Just look at how many markets they have had a chance to dominate in the past that they pissed away with stupid ideas, like tying walkman to ATRAC when MP3 was already the popular format.

If it were me I just would have been honest with my customers, which would have engendered good will. I would have said "Look, all these research bunches snatching up machines to lock them up in labs is costing us money we really need for R&D, so we can keep making improvements to the PS3. So from now on we just aren't gonna have that feature in base PS3s, but if you want it we'll be happy to sell you a "research edition" PS3 for $1000, so we can afford to continue to give you great products." That would have been much better all around, but instead as you pointed out Sony went and shot themselves firmly in the foot. I would argue that was just one stupid move from an arrogant company with a history of stupid moves when they think they have a hit, even when they don't.

As much as the guys here love to hate MSFT, you have to admit they generally learn from their mistakes and they try not to piss on their customers. Just look at how quick they got Windows 7 out the door and quit talking about the Vista turkey, or how they took a billion dollar hit to make good on any of the RRoD X360s. They could have just lied about the problem and got some serious bad will, but they manned up and took the hit. That was a smart business move, something Sony should have learned from with this boneheaded move.

Re:Don't Update

[txmcse]

"which would have engendered good will"... I highly doubt this. Gamers wouldn't/don't/will not care. Everyone else is going to get pissy no matter the reason, right? Totally agree with you on the "removing the feature from existing units was wrong", but i just don't buy into the idea that they would have preserved good will by giving a reason for the change.

Re:Don't Update

[txmcse]

If sony wanted to create such a platform, they wouldn't do it as a game console... they would rebrand the hardware, and release it as a new product, right?

Don't upgrade the firmware.

[longtailedhermit]

I hope they don't accidentally update the firmware. (I think the latest updates will wipe the linux installation.)

Re:Don't upgrade the firmware.

[Anonymous Coward]

How can they "accidentally" update the firmware? I'm pretty sure the AFRL isn't using this to play Blu-Rays and get on PSN.

Re:Don't upgrade the firmware.

[SleazyRidr]

Pipped by one minute. That's gotta sting.

Re:Don't upgrade the firmware.

[CronoCloud]

You can't accidentally update a PS3, when upgrading from 3.20 and earlier it requires you to confirm...TWICE, and tells you what will happen when you do.

Re:Don't upgrade the firmware.

[longtailedhermit]

That's good to know. I don't own one, yet, but I'd like to buy an older one for that reason and for gaming, of course.

Re:Don't upgrade the firmware.

[tius]

You can't, but someone else can. My wife updated the firmware for her new dance game, killing my ability to run my Cell code under Linux.

Re:Don't upgrade the firmware.

[CronoCloud]

Ouch! My condolences. If I wasn't the sole user of mine I'd have put a little sign on mine if I'd have kept YDL on it,

Why?

[orphiuchus]

Why exactly did they do this? And why with PS3s of all things?

Re:Why?

[Desler]

Because PS3s are comparatively cheap as nodes to build a supercomputer with?

Re:Why?

[wed128]

Cheaper then the IBM CELL Blades...

Re:Why?

[tha_toadman]

It's this little processor known as 'The Cell'. Google it.

Re:Why?

[Even on Slashdot FOE]

Because thousands of PS3s cost less than a normal supercomputer. This means they can get a lot more supercomputer for their buck.

Re:Why?

[twoallbeefpatties]

Because they had a ton of leftover trade-in value at Gamestop.

Re:Why?

[Monkeedude1212]

At the time of the PS3's release, it was very affordable for the Cell Architecture and performance it provided, and you could put your own operating system on it.

You know how Sony lost money on every PS3 sold... but then made the costs back with like 10 dollars from every game?

And you notice how the government bought 1,760 thousand of these things (or more) for a non-gaming purpose?

Did you hear the firmware updates and new PS3s remove the "Other OS" option?

Or did you think that those 3 incidents were entirely unrelated?

Man I ask a lot of questions.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

At the time of the PS3's release, it was very affordable for the Cell Architecture and performance it provided, and you could put your own operating system on it.

You know how Sony lost money on every PS3 sold... but then made the costs back with like 10 dollars from every game?

And you notice how the government bought 1,760 thousand of these things (or more) for a non-gaming purpose?

Did you hear the firmware updates and new PS3s remove the "Other OS" option?

Or did you think that those 3 incidents were entirely unrelated?

Man I ask a lot of questions.

You fail to understand the economies of scale.

While it is true in a sense that Sony spent more on each PS3 than they charged for them at the beginning of the cycle of the product, most of those costs are sunk costs in manufacturing. The more PS3s they sold, the less they were losing (rather than the other way around, which is the infantile economics view a lot of people claimed).

Now they have sold so many PS3s that the sunk costs are more than paid for, but it's not sensible to say current PS3s are profitable and older ones were not. They paid for development and equipment, and each PS3 sold at any time was revenue Sony used to recoup losses and eventually make a profit.

Think of it like this. You buy a $100 grill and $200 in meat to cook and sell hamburgers. You eventually sell 1000 burgers at $2. The combined cost of the first burger might seem like $300 or $100.20, but it was actually $0.21 the entire time if you think long term (which, of course, is how Sony saw it). the real fear at the beginning was that the PS3 would flop like the original XBOX did (imagine if you only sold 40 burgers). but it hasn't. It's a huge success and on track to sell almost as many units as the other two Playstations.

No, Sony did not cancel other OS to stop the Air Force from building this supercomputer. they did it to prevent analysis of their security architecture that facilitated pirating games.

Re:Why?

[l0ungeb0y]

What's even more interesting is that in 2005 IBM and Sony tried to sway Jobs to migrate to Cell after IBM essentially called it a day on consumer line of POWER processors (PowerPC). As I recall, Sony even offered to build a PS3 emulator for the OS X platform to sweeten the deal. However, Jobs was reluctant to have the Apple brand compared in anyway to a gaming console, Cell Blades in the server room be damned.

Fast forward to 2010, Apple migrated to x86 chips, have had huge success with their mac-mini server, but have just killed their XServe line, largely because it lost it's excellent clustering features when they went x86. Apple could be wiping the floor in the grid and super computing market with low cost mac minis. Instead, they are off on the sideline still not able to play with the big boys.

Re:Why?

[DrgnDancer]

I still wish I could have been a fly on the wall when this purchase order went through:

Purchasing Agent: Excuse me Colonel, I just got a purchase order signed by you for 1,700 video games systems, I don't know how that happened but I wanted to call and correct...

Colonel: No, that's correct, 1760 PS3 video game systems, you see we're building a...

PA: I can't buy you 1760 video game consoles, they'll fire me.

C: No really, it's a valid project, you see we're going to build a huge cell process...

PA: Colonel, please... Let's send this to over to Bob and let him buy it... I never liked Bob anyways...

C: No really look, this all really technical and...

PA: It's no problem, Colonel, I transferred the PO to Bob. He'll set you up...

C: ... :click: :Colonel's phone rings:

Bob: Hey Colonel, it's Bob in purchasing, I just got a PO signed by you for 1700 video game systems and I wanted...

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Core is the best value high-performance 8 core chip you can buy. It's especially cheap because Sony subsidies it hoping to make up sales in games (which probably won't happen here).

Re:Why?

[O('_')O_Bush]

Proof? My understanding that they were losing money on every PS3 regardless of scale, just like printers lose money on every sale, but make the money back in ink cartridge prices.

It's a different but equally valid model, and one that you have disregarded so that you can call other people "infantile" for recognizing it.

From Digital Trends: "Since the PS3’s debut in November of 2006, every console been sold for a loss. With the move to a new cheaper and cooler RSX graphics card, the PS3 is finally showing a profit on each unit sold. ...
It isn’t uncommon for consoles to sell at a loss as manufacturers make up the difference through game prices and additional components like controllers, while waiting for the component pricing to inevitably drop, but the costs were higher than anticipated. By comparison, the Xbox 360, which sold at a loss of around $100 per unit when it debuted, quickly began to see a profit of $75per console within a year and a half of the its release."

So from the sounds of it: "Now they have sold so many PS3s that the sunk costs are more than paid for, but it's not sensible to say current PS3s are profitable and older ones were not. They paid for development and equipment, and each PS3 sold at any time was revenue Sony used to recoup losses and eventually make a profit." is mostly incorrect.

It *is* sensible to say that the current PS3s are profitable and the older ones are not since the current PS3s had hardware changes that made them more profitable and the old ones didn't. The cost per unit in just hardware (not including sunk cost) was still higher than what they were being sold for.

Re:Why?

[AK Marc]

While it is true in a sense that Sony spent more on each PS3 than they charged for them at the beginning of the cycle of the product, most of those costs are sunk costs in manufacturing.

No, they were losing actual money on each one. That is, they spent some amount of money to design and tool for it. Then, for each one they put out, they spent more on the materials and construction than they took in. They weren't making money but not paying off the initial cost. They were actually losing money on each one. They required game sales to make up the difference. And they did.

Now they have sold so many PS3s that the sunk costs are more than paid for, but it's not sensible to say current PS3s are profitable and older ones were not.

The hardware profits (if any) have still not reached the level of the hardware development and production costs. They have not now, or ever, made money on putting out PS3 hardware.

Think of it like this. You buy a $100 grill and $200 in meat to cook and sell hamburgers. You eventually sell 1000 burgers at $2.

You are wrong. It's like buying a $1000 grill and $1000 in meat to sell 100 hamburgers at $5 each. You spent $2000 to make $500. There is no way to buy another batch of $1000 meat and sell another set of burgers at $5 to make up the difference. However, Sony knows this. They sold it with fries and a drink. The cost for fries and a drink is $1 per order, and the combo is sold at $12. So if everyone who walks up buys only a burger, Sony would have gone out of business (provided they made enough burgers). However, almost everyone gets the combo, so Sony makes about a 10% profit overall on the burger, even though they are selling them at a loss.

This isn't like car sales, which is how you described (except for the Volt, which loses money for each one sold with no way to ever make it up, so they are written off as R&D expenses or such). It takes over a billion dollars to design and tool for a new car, so the first one is either sold at a billion dollar loss, or all of them get some percentage of that cost attached to them causing the net profit to be called a loss until some volume is achieved. But the Volt and the PS3 were sold for an actual loss. The more volume sold, the greater the loss.

Re:Why?

[Monkeedude1212]

Really now - because when I saw the price drop to $299 I thought to myself The processor and GPU alone could probably go for that cost and now they're adding on a couple of controllers and a bunch of plastic.

So I always thought of it more like "It cost me 400 to make my console, I sell it for 300, but if they buy 10 games and I get 10 dollars each I break even. They buy more I make money"

I thought it was always THAT simple and you don't need to think about anything longer term than that - because anything after those 10 games is pure profit.

Re:Why?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Indeed. And still I have to wonder why Sony didn't sell a processor-unlocked version which doesn't include the Sony OS at all - and charge 3, 4, or 5 times as much for the same hardware. It would have been excellent processing power for the price, and it would have made PS3 hardware itself very profitable.

They missed a good opportunity to make a huge chunk of cash on what they sold as a loss leader.

Re:Why?

[nschubach]

I'm curious how they got access to the GPUs... I thought those were restricted to basically a frame-buffer.

Re:Why?

[ZosX]

And IBM continues to develop the Power architecture, which is wiping the floor with most chips out there these days. Something tells me that intel offered chips at a significantly cheaper rate than the ibm powerpcs. I don't believe for a second it had anything to do with performance or power consumption. Though, they were black eyes in the powerpc architecture around 5 years ago. If anything I was always fond of apples because they were different, right down to the CPU, and now they are basically a really expensive PC inside.

Re:Why?

[CronoCloud]

They did, the Zego: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zego

And the PS2 based GSCube before that:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GScube

Re:Why?

[Surt]

Probably because Sony subsidizes the sale of PS3 hardware, so this is one of the cheaper ways to buy flops.

Re:Why?

[Ndkchk]

According to a few different places, Sony started making a profit on PS3s in April this year. Only took them about four years to get there...

Re:Why?

[l0ungeb0y]

No, IBM cancelled the PowerPC line because Apple wasn't moving enough chips to justify keeping the fabs going for it. Instead, they focused on Cell.

IBM pushed hard to convince Apple to move to Cell since having both Sony and Apple on board would have guaranteed more sales for them, but Apple went with Intel. If any undercutting was done, it was Intel undercutting AMD to seal the deal with Apple. Either way, Apple's move from PowerPC was forced.

Re:Why?

[westlake]

You know how Sony lost money on every PS3 sold... but then made the costs back with like 10 dollars from every game?
And you notice how the government bought 1,760 thousand of these things (or more) for a non-gaming purpose?
Did you hear the firmware updates and new PS3s remove the "Other OS" option?
Or did you think that those incidents were entirely unrelated?

Not only that, but the PS3 cluster was undermining whatever chance Sony had of successfully marketing a high-margin commercial HPC product based on the cell.

   

Re:Why?

[Chaostrophy]

If you are enough of a god to fully use it, the Cell is an awesome CPU. You have a simple PPC cpu (I want to say two threads, no out of order, but good theoretical IPC), and 8 processors, each with their own 256KB of memory. Of course, you have to manage those processors and their memory usage, without killing the main memory bus.........not simple or easy, though if you think about it as a extremely CISC vector machine, it may well make sense for scientific computing (stream data several sets, mangle it through the Cell, write it out). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_processor

Re:Why?

[Narishma]

Nobody said they got access to them.

Re:Why?

[pnewhook]

The PowerPC is not cancelled - it's used in lots of things and actively being developed.

Re:Why?

[Score Whore]

How much RAM per node? Where do I hook up the infiniband to move the data around?

Re:Why?

[ushering05401]

Amortization.

The impact of expenditure for tooling is distributed across multiple financial periods and can be used to maximize overall take much the same way Uwe used to get his films funded in Germany through a tax strategy for people already making too much money for their bracket elsewhere.

Exercising assets at a known loss rate while harvesting market share and R&D cred doesn't have the financial implications one would expect - the mechanisms for balancing scheduled assets and liabilities offer significant strategic options.

The PS3 was a calculated anchor capitalizing on the inevitable emergence of incremental cost saving steps while holding market share through a burn in period. Every dollar they 'lost' went into the company tax posture.

It is interesting to reflect on the Sony official who was embarrassed after speaking an apparently internal opinion that game makers wouldn't understand how to harness what they had been given for another ten years. I presume he was talking about the Cell.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it very definitely came down to performance or power consumption.

http://gigaom.com/apple/the-ongoing-decline-of-the-desktop-mac/desktop_decline_mac_sales/

Laptop sales exceeded desktop sales for the first time (after a rising trend) in 2004. 2005, Apple announces the switch to Intel (and everyone replaces their desktops, so desktops sell more, also I think desktops came out first, but I could be making that up). 2006, laptops are outselling desktops as though 2005 never happened and the trend continued (accounting for an increase in overall sales).

IBM was never going to make (and still hasn't, as far as I can tell) a top of the line Power chip that could fit in a laptop without turning someone's legs into ash. Apple made the switch because they realized how important mobile (at that time: laptop) computing was going to be and they wanted to ensure that their top of the line mobile computers were, at the very least, in the same generation as their desktop computers.

I did like the PowerPC Apple's, too. I wish they'd stayed...

Re:Why?

[Dr Max]

That is similar to what happened to the scientist that built the supercomputer out of 8 ps3s so that he could map black holes, he had a hell of a time getting it past his boss. but US defense would no doubt already have a lot of gaming consoles already in use as video game systems (FPS is the most popular genre amongst the soldiers). Maybe they just bought everybody new ones and kept the old ps3s for the supercomputer.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why exactly did they do this? And why with PS3s of all things?

This is clearly the talk of someone who does not have 1,760 PS3s.

Re:Why?

[rubycodez]

you must be one of those people who think the PC in PowerPC stands for Personal Computer.

Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing

Variants of the PowerPC architecture are in about half of all automobiles, most video game consoles, all IBM mainframes and Power7 servers and blades, some aircraft control systems......

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure if sony got a call from the airforce, and the airforce purchased a dev kit, they can access that stuff.

Re:Why?

[DrgnDancer]

The military doesn't *typically* buy video games systems for soldiers. We briefly considered using some of our MWR (Morale, Welfare, and Recreation) funds in Iraq to buy a couple of game systems and some other stuff to put together a lounge type area for our troops, but it turned out to be nearly impossible to do. The rules surrounding the use of MWR funds make such a thing... difficult. Soldiers buy their own PS3s.

Re:Why?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

That's really cool - I'd had no idea that they did that.

So much for the theory....

[scosco62]

that the gov't has better gear than the private sector......or maybe that's what they want us to think........

Re:So much for the theory....

[Monkeedude1212]

Who in the private sector has 1,760 PS3s hooked up together running the non-Sony OS?

Re:So much for the theory....

[scosco62]

Not talking macro, man....

Is There A

[Anonymous Coward]

John McCain option?

Yours In Iceland,
K. Trout

This is their third try.

[Minwee]

Previous efforts included a supercomputer made up of 1760 Wiis, but the resulting cluster had less computing power than the researchers' mobile phones and had to be abandoned.

A second attempt at putting together a cluster of 1760 X-Boxes was scuttled when investigations showed no less than 600 of them were showing Red Rings of Doom at any given time.

The Air Force team is confident that using PS3s is a better idea due to their size, weight, and the fact that nobody can find any games that they want to play on them anyway.

(Are there any fanboys I haven't offended with this? I'm trying to be thorough.)

Re:This is their third try.

[Even on Slashdot FOE]

I love Trinity Universe, Cross Edge, and Disgaea 3, all of which are on the PS3, you insensitive clod!

Re:This is their third try.

[Xtense]

You missed PC and handheld gamers, but good effort nonetheless! 7/10

Re:This is their third try.

[phyrexianshaw.ca]

Wow, I play a good pile of games a year.. and I've never even heard of one of those. :P

Re:This is their third try.

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

(Are there any fanboys I haven't offended with this? I'm trying to be thorough.)

I'm still waiting for a 1760 node cluster of these.

Re:This is their third try.

[Anonymous Coward]

(Are there any fanboys I haven't offended with this? I'm trying to be thorough.)

You forgot the Sega Dreamcast, which is better than exactly two (2) of those consoles.

(how's that for a fanboy troll? :D)

Re:This is their third try.

[Linker3000]

Actually, the Wii cluster was quite powerful, but the operators couldn't lift the 1760 Wiimotes glued together in order to navigate the front end menu.

Re:This is their third try.

[morari]

Pft. The Dreamcast is easily the most impressive console to have existed thus far. Far ahead of its time.

Re:This is their third try.

[Arancaytar]

You neglected to trash Apple. (Though I'm not sure if they even have a game console. iBox?)

Re:This is their third try.

[Nemyst]

They also tried using 1760 DSs, but most ended up being entirely used for Brain Age. The managers of the project also didn't like to know they had a brain age of over 60.

PSPs were also thought of, but Marcus said that was so un-cool that they abandoned the idea and they were always requesting firmware updates.

Stumbling on PCs, the hope was short-lived as the engineers couldn't decide on blue or red LEDs on the fans.

Hopes are high now for the Atari 2600 if the PS3 does not succeed.

Re:This is their third try.

[Anonymous Coward]

(Are there any fanboys I haven't offended with this? I'm trying to be thorough.)

Star Trek, but they're pretty used to being left out.

Re:This is their third try.

[Pharmboy]

Of course, the resulting cluster would have a combined RAM total of 14,417,920 bytes, or well under 16MB, since the MOS Technology 6507 only could access 8k. Except half the RAM is reserved for BIOS, to in reality you could access less than 8MB of RAM for the OS and applications. In other words, it might not even run Linux.

Re:This is their third try.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well they also tried to build one out of 1,760 iPhones, but found they couldn't write anything for it as their programs were rejected from the app store.

Re:This is their third try.

[rtyhurst]

I'll bet it gets a great fps score on Crysis.

Re:This is their third try.

[bhcompy]

1760 Gibsons

Re:This is their third try.

[FreonTrip]

There was the Apple Bandai Pippin, but that horse has been dead so long - and the gawkers so long departed - that it's just a fertile spot with grass growing where the animal fell.

Re:This is their third try.

[Hatta]

Those are all from Nippon Ichi, a very niche publisher of very Japanese RPGs. If you like traditional turn based JRPGs with anime styling, give them a shot, they could use the business.

Re:This is their third try.

[butalearner]

Wow, I play a good pile of games a year..

Since you play more than one game in a year, then logically it follows that you haven't played a Nippon Ichi game.

I kid, but I have spent probably 600 hours of my life on the mainline Disgaea games. The combo of Valkyria Chronicles and Disgaea 3 was the best reason to even have PS3 two years ago.

Re:This is their third try.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple fanboys?

Re:This is their third try.

[CODiNE]

(Are there any fanboys I haven't offended with this? I'm trying to be thorough.)

I have a Virtual Boy you insensitive clod!

Re:This is their third try.

[Atomic Fro]

I think you mean Pippin.

of course...

[Anonymous Coward]

then they plugged the PS3's into the internet and they auto-updated removing the ability to run a seperate OS and the whole thing crashed to the ground.....

Re:of course...

[Narishma]

You can't auto-update the PS3, unless you pay for the Playstation Plus service.

DMCA

[pr0f3550r]

I guess it is ok then to jailbreak these?!!??

Re:DMCA

[Desler]

What's to jailbreak? These are PS3s they bought a long while ago and they wouldn't be updating the firmware since playing the latest Blu-Rays and getting on PSN isn't a high priority for this lab.

Re:DMCA

[yt8znu35]

It's OK for the gubmint, but if you modify yours then you are a danger to society.

Re:DMCA

[Anonymous Coward]

And calling up their local Sony Rep and getting the dev kit is out of the question...

Re:DMCA

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the Air Force. Sony's local Rep calls them and asks how they can be of service today.

Remember, they are a Japanese company. They don't want the Air Force coming back for a visit.

Re:DMCA

[Zero1za]

Heh, that's horrible, but I have to admit I ROFLed for a while.

Not that surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

IANACS (I am not a computer scientist), but my father works on managing supercomputer time in the scientific community.

He's been complaining for a while now that advanced chip design is driven by video games and graphics, and that the best chips around (on an informal, bang-for-the-buck basis) are PS3/Xbox designs. Apparently, there's more money to be made in optimizing entertainment hardware for college students than in creating useful scientific tools. It's not the end of the world, but it complicates the coding problems for the sorts of scientists who need to run giant simulations (theoretical physicists, meteorologists, climatologists, protein biologists, etc.).

Re:Not that surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

ah " BOO HOO, society doesn't value my contributions to the common good"

I've got a message for your father : "GO F
@#$%^&* CARRIER LOST

Obligatory

[samriel]

Just imagine a beowulf cluster of those!

Re:Obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait... Do you work for the Air Force?

Re:Obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

You bastard, you stole my meme!

Skynet needed 25 days

[ff1324]

Skynet needed 25 days to become self-aware. Should we expect Slashdot entries on Christmas or shortly thereafter telling us that someone or something was born?

Actually if Kristanna Loken comes looking for me, I'm ok with it...

Why are Sony so horribly short-sighted

[mewsenews]

As far as I know, they're the only console maker that has a branch of the American armed forces using their hardware for a literal supercomputer cluster, which is a stunning, resounding endorsement for the real world horsepower behind their hardware, and they've disabled the very "other OS" feature that allowed the air force to build the cluster in the first place.

What the hell, Sony, you idiots.

Re:Why are Sony so horribly short-sighted

[Anonymous Coward]

There's more to it than that. Game piracy is a legitimate issue that has to be thwarted, and it's not like the slashdot community gave Sony any credit for their support of Linux anyway. They lost almost nothing buy disabling otherOS, sadly. I loved the feature, too. Sony's not perfect, but they do have a better record on open gaming tech than the competition.

But way to go calling people idiots when they are making billions on an amazing and sophisticated product. I'm sure you're somehow in a position to look down on that accomplishment. Idiot.

Re:Why are Sony so horribly short-sighted

[Anonymous Coward]

So stopping from purchases made purely for computing usage (meaning a pure loss for sony) is stupid? The only other option would be to price ps3 above cost which would KILL sales (far more then what these small projects provide).

Re:Why are Sony so horribly short-sighted

[blair1q]

ITAR.

If anyone could do this with Sony's currently-produced hardware, Sony would be breaking the law by shipping that hardware to anyone "International".

Re:Why are Sony so horribly short-sighted

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Instead of charging 5x as much for a cpu-unlocked version of the same product -- earning a profit and coming in as a great deal for those who need it.

Re:Why are Sony so horribly short-sighted

[Anonymous Coward]

Sony is not an american company.

The US subsidiary *might* break the law shipping PS3s to Iran, a Japanese company isn't.

Re:Why are Sony so horribly short-sighted

[blair1q]

The processors in PS3 were developed in the USA. I have little doubt that Sony has to adhere to ITAR when making and selling them.

Re:Why are Sony so horribly short-sighted

[Anonymous Coward]

COTS products are generally not ITAR. An item can fall under ITAR when it is designed to specifically meet a US defense requirement or is built using technology or parts that are ITAR.

Re:Why are Sony so horribly short-sighted

[oneiros27]

"generally not" means nothing-- there's the 'dual use' category, which is civilian stuff that might have military applications. They've had to keep raising the definition of 'supercomputer' some of the early G4 apple powerbooks qualified.

Re:Why are Sony so horribly short-sighted

[Anonymous Coward]

Game piracy is a legitimate issue that has to be thwarted...

And I'm willing to bet you'd stick to that line at ANY cost. There isn't a consumer right worthy of keeping, nor a less-profitable business model worth employing, in order to maintain absolute, uncompetitive market control. In fact, even just talking about it could lead to the end of the global economy and all things good & holy. Nope, we're not idiots, and game piracy is a non-issue for virtually everyone except those who have gotten used to a 3-digit ROI and a locked down market.

Re:Why are Sony so horribly short-sighted

[brirus]

The Air Force probably bribed them to do it. Some day all firmware will be Free! Free, i say! and then we can pull all those old nokia phones out of the trash and use them as TV remotes, and we'll get all our old iMacs working again... and Linux will run on a civilian's PS3, once again. And we could network every device in the whole world into one big happy subnet!

Re:Why are Sony so horribly short-sighted

[westlake]

As far as I know, they're the only console maker that has a branch of the American armed forces using their hardware for a literal supercomputer cluster, which is a stunning, resounding endorsement for the real world horsepower behind their hardware, and they've disabled the very "other OS" feature that allowed the air force to build the cluster in the first place. What the hell, Sony, you idiots

What sells 5 million Kinect controllers before Christmas is the "I want it now!" tech that can be sold to your kids in a thirty second commercial.

Not the geek's hardware hack.

As for the Other OS and the PS3, Sony had no interest in cannibalizing future sales of its own cell-based HPC product.

What would.....

[Anonymous Coward]

A cluster of 1760 PS3's make up the fastest supercomputer the US airforce has what would a cluster of all the PS3's that have been made would be like?

How about just the ones online?

Distributed computing. Have a PS3 app that is installed if selected and when your not playing it runs distributed computing. Give the people whos PS3's are been used something in return like online credits for DLC.

Anyone got any figures on how much processing could be available if done?

Re:What would.....

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt PS3 owners in many countries around the world would want their processors being used by the US military.

Re:What would.....

[mister_playboy]

Distributed computing. Have a PS3 app that is installed if selected and when your not playing it runs distributed computing. Give the people whos PS3's are been used something in return like online credits for DLC.

Anyone got any figures on how much processing could be available if done?

Folding@Home did exactly what you are proposing. PS3s are a major contributor to the project:

http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=osstats

Re:What would.....

[CronoCloud]

Folding@Home has been available for the PS3 for years

http://folding.stanford.edu/English/FAQ-PS3

Not a Beowulf cluster...

[TheDarAve]

but an airwulf cluster... *sigh* Didn't I use this joke already a few years back?

We need it for Black Ops.

[billstewart]

You can't stop us, Audit Trolls, we're using it for Black Ops! So Go Away!

This is Why Sony Disabled OtherOS

[mentil]

Sony is/was losing money on every sale, banking on making it up in licensing fees from the games purchased for each console sold. When thousands of PS3s are used in applications like this, they're losing money subsidizing cheap supercomputing, which they're not interested in doing. The question is if the amount they're saving is more than they're losing from bad publicity and gamers' purchasing decisions hinging on OtherOS, I imagine it's about break even.

Re:This is Why Sony Disabled OtherOS

[jack2000]

Don't forget the PS3 has been hacked. So even if you buy a new PS3 with other os disabled you can still enable it and build your own little super cluster.
Game over man. Selling at a loss only to recover money from games will be a bitch for Sony now.

Re:This is Why Sony Disabled OtherOS

[magarity]

Sony is/was losing money on every sale, banking on making it up in licensing fees from the games purchased for each console sold

Other people have already mentioned this, proving that none of you read the article and/or thought it through at all. It clearly states the USAF purchased them by working directly with Sony, not sending a few hundred privates out to get a few from the local Best Buy. When the USAF called to place an order for 1,700 units, do you seriously think Sony quoted them the retail price at which they lose a few bucks per unit? Furthermore the folks at Sony planned on the USAF to send legions of privates out to buy an average of 3 games each in order to make a profit on the software side of the deal? It took you 10 times longer to type your post than it should have to think of these minor details.

Re:This is Why Sony Disabled OtherOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course it took you 10 times longer to type your post. You repeated yourself.

Go figure

[Anonymous Coward]

And everyone wonders why ps3's were impossible to find for years after launch

Sony, you idiots.

[nurb432]

Since they make their money off the games sold and not the console, they will take a loss ( or at the least make almost nothing ) for every 'cluster' built. So they are idiots why?

Re:Sony, you idiots.

[Anonymous Coward]

Since they make their money off the games sold and not the console, they will take a loss ( or at the least make almost nothing ) for every 'cluster' built. So they are idiots why?

That hasn't been true for years. None of the players have been taking a loss on their console for years. It's part of the reason why nobody is in a hurry to release the next generation. They're still selling well and the economies of scale from mass producing them has already caught up to make it cost-effective.

Besides, what the grandparent is saying isn't that they should be making a business model out of clusters. He's saying that the clusters are a great marketing tool. "Our console is more powerful than the xbox. The airforce is using it for serious business. Therefore the version of games on the PS3 will always look better and have higher frame-rates."

Iraq did this once

[BigFrango]

Does anyone remember back in 2000, Saddam Hussein bought 4,000 PS2s, presumably to build a missile-guidance system.

Iraq tried to do this 10 years ago

[Anonymous Coward]

This reminded me of a story in which Iraq was buying PS2s and trying to link them together to command UAVs. Back then, they couldn't get computers because of sanctions, but they could get "toys", so this was not a bad way to go.

so if the government does it, it's all right?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't what the Air Force doing against the law? After all, someone just (almost) went to jail for modding an x-box, right?

Still,

[Anonymous Coward]

I would utterly destroy it at MW2

Single Precision Floating Point

[Anonymous Coward]

As I understand, the PS3 processor only has high performance floating-point when doing Single Precision FLOPS. (One of the main reasons that Los Alamos had IBM do a varient chip for their Roadrunner system was to get good Double-precision FPU performance). As I recall, DP FP operations are about 10x slower than SP on the PS3, which would make this a much slower machine for most applications.

Of course, presumably the DoD has some specialized apps which don't require double precision, or perhaps they are doing Integer-heavy computations (like Crypto or the like).

Alternately, it was getting towards the end of the fiscal year, and they wanted to spend some money or lose it... :-)

Jailbroken

[guspasho]

Either they bought all those PS3s over 9 months ago or they are jailbroken.

But then again it wouldn't be the worst illegal thing the government has done.

ONLY 500TFLOPS from almost 2,000 machines?

[Khyber]

Who's the slob doing the coding? Each PS3 has a 2TFLOP capability. (1.3 if you exclude RSX.) You should be hitting higher than that.

Re:ONLY 500TFLOPS from almost 2,000 machines?

[Anonymous Coward]

The PS3 as a whole has 2TFLOPs performance. Excluding the GPU, it has 153.6GFLOPS (6 x SPEs at 25.6GFLOPS).

Skynet

[Pandur77]

So, Skynet runs on PS3s then?

How's the power consumption?

[Kaenneth]

Is the PS3 an energy efficent solution, or is the power bill higher than it would be for a 'traditional' supercomputer?

Not just in direct power consumption, but air conditioning costs, etc?

I used to have a pretty powerful setup at home, 6 multicore PC's stacked up on my desk, but my current hardware is not only more efficent, I don't have to run the AC even when there is snow outside.

I know government in particular (I used to work in a govt. budget office) has lots of accounting tricks to use. For example, we had to go through a horrible bidding process for software purchases; but I found a nice loophole of buying books that came with the software, since books could be bought directly. (also, the book+software bundle was cheaper than just the software)

MOD PARENT UP...REALLY

[Anonymous Coward]

I had no idea that they basically stuffed a PS3 in a rackmount case.

beowulf cluster

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess someone imagined a beowulf cluster of these?

WTF?

[bball99]

i cannot believe that IBM or other U.S. vendors instead of Sony would not have been capable of crafting such a system... quite telling, IMO

Re:WTF?

[hardwarefreak]

i cannot believe that IBM or other U.S. vendors instead of Sony would not have been capable of crafting such a system... quite telling, IMO

They have, almost 5 years ago, actually. You are simply uninformed, haven't been paying attention:

http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/19198.wss
http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/bladecenter/hardware/servers/qs22/index.html

And the IBM Cell blade has a Cell chip, the PowerXCell 8i, with 1 extra SPE, 5 times the double precision floating point performance, and with the Infiniband HCA, over 50 times faster network communications.

Where have you been these past 5 years? :-)

WPA2 anyone?

[Thad Zurich]

I wonder how they disabled the wi-fi? Or maybe they didn't...

Re: The MIB are above the law

[mcheu]

The US government is conveniently exempted from the DMCA when national security issues become involved.

Pretty much anything to do with the armed forces can very easily be swept under that particular rug.

I have 1,760 PS3s

[Anonymous Coward]

While you have no PS3s. How does that make you feel?

xx

[Anonymous Coward]

just because everybody in the barracks is playing call of duty doesn't mean you can call it a supercomputer

Airman Magazine Article

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's another article from Airman Magazine that has a few more details:

http://www.airmanonline.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123228018

For those noting that the GPU doesn't render in Linux; they don't need it - it's doing cluster calculations on the cell processors.

For those talking about jailbreaking; they don't need to run games or access PSN. Conjecture: they are probably running original firmware, and the cluster is on an isolated (non-public facing) network.

As the article I linked states, when PS3s break, they remove them from the cluster without replacement, as the new 'slim' models are unusable.

I call bullshit on the 500 TFLOPS/s claim

[hardwarefreak]

RoadRunner, http://www.lanl.gov/discover/roadrunner_fastest_computer

has over 13,000 PowerXCell 8i chips which are 4 times faster than the PS3 Cell chip on FP code. RR executes Linpack at 1.04 PetaFLOPS/s, just over double what AFRL is claiming for their little bullshit 1760 Cell cluster. If AFRL is quoting PEAK hardware performance, their 1760 PS3s would hit a mere 180 TFLOPS/s, far short of that 500 figure. The head nodes they mention would add another 10 TFLOPS/s peak. They didn't specify the number and type of GPUs in the cluster. Even so, they're still not going to hit 500 TFLOPS/s, nowhere close to it running any application, and not close to it if quoting PEAK hardware numbers.

Those Air Force boys must be smoking some good weed these days to hallucinate that 500 TFLOPS/s figure.

Imagine

[cstacy]

Imagine a Beowulf ....oh, wait

E-waste

[NetServices]

So that is where my old PS3 went after I sent it to the recycling center!

Skynet, cheesy but seems to be getting closer ;-)

[Anonymous Coward]

I love IT and how it continues to evolve but am I the only one seeing parallels to The terminator series?

well...

[medea]

...that's one major source for password-cracking rainbowtables... :-)

2007 called, they want thier supercomputer back.

[mrsportacus]

Alright! the USAF now has a super computer from 2007

Welcome to 2 years ago.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this news? This was done and articles have been in the wild about this for about a year. Including /.
So they had a photo-op ribbon cutting. whoopie!