Air Force Supercomputer Made From PS3's

old news is old by drkamil · 2011-03-23 14:27 · Score: 5, Informative

we already know this, and we already discussed it AGAIN when sony deactivated the otheros option...

Re:old news is old by Culture20 · 2011-03-23 14:42 · Score: 1

so maybe your friends cant play tekken on it now.
Re:old news is old by TavisJohn · 2011-03-23 15:49 · Score: 1

I almost expected the US Military to sue Sony for killing "Other OS" because of this.
"We only purchased the machines to use the "Other OS" option. Now that you killed it, the consoles are useless to us."
Re:old news is old by Kryptonian+Jor-El · 2011-03-23 16:56 · Score: 1, Interesting

Well, the current set up is fine. However if the Air Force wanted to replace broken PS3s or even expand the cluster, they couldn't. They could argue about Sony ruining their future scalability of their cluster due to the removal of OtherOS.

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Re:old news is old by TavisJohn · 2011-03-23 17:07 · Score: 1

It is fine... As long as nobody updates any of them. ;)
Re:old news is old by Hamsterdan · 2011-03-23 18:11 · Score: 1

I'd really like to see this...

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Re:old news is old by martin-boundary · 2011-03-23 18:32 · Score: 1

That's ok. When the operational tests are fully completed 10 years from now, the Air Force will order 25 such supercomputers to power their IT infrastructure for the next 50 years after that...
Re:old news is old by mwvdlee · 2011-03-23 19:21 · Score: 1

Then again, since PS3's are sold at a loss, they really don't have much power to complain.
I'm sure Sony would be willing to sell the Air Force 1,700 PS3 development kits.

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Re:old news is old by Plunky · 2011-03-23 20:30 · Score: 1

How would Sony not gain from this? What is the cost to them of selling 1700 consumer PS3's and what would the equivalent advertising cost them?
Re:old news is old by Eunuchswear · 2011-03-23 21:30 · Score: 1

I see some sneaky saboteur sticking a recent game disk in in the middle of the night....

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Re:old news is old by mwvdlee · 2011-03-23 22:08 · Score: 1

Sony would not gain from this because they sell the PS3 at a loss.
A consumer would buy games and/or movies, turning the loss-leader into a profit, the Air Force would not.

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Re:old news is old by mcvos · 2011-03-23 22:20 · Score: 1

Then again, since PS3's are sold at a loss, they really don't have much power to complain.
It's not the USAF's fault that Sony has a retarded business model.
Re:old news is old by Zediker · 2011-03-23 23:00 · Score: 1

You do realize that the USAF would likely enter into contract with Sony for the PS3s right? It isnt like they're going to go down to the local tech store and say "gimmie all your PS3s heres a couple thousand dollars". They can easily add a clause that states, "All PS3s delivered shall have the OtherOS option enabled". Sure, they may pay a few extra bucks from Sony, but it will still be cheaper to buy those in bulk from Sony than from a normal store.

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Re:old news is old by Bert64 · 2011-03-23 23:29 · Score: 1

Sony chose to sell the PS3 units at a loss, the air force is merely taking advantage of the system.
The slim ps3 models are apparently no longer sold at a loss, and they also consume less power and produce less heat making them a better choice for supercomputing... However the OtherOS option is not available at all on the slim models...
Ofcourse the air force could always jailbreak the slim models, that would not only give them the power benefits and a source of new hardware, but on a jailbroken system you get access to 7 SPUs instead of 6, and there is the potential to enable the 8th which was disabled to improve yields, most slim ps3 should have a working 8th spu by now since the production process will have improved... They could also potentially program the GPU to get extra performance.

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Re:old news is old by DrXym · 2011-03-23 23:39 · Score: 1

I almost expected the US Military to sue Sony for killing "Other OS" because of this.
"We only purchased the machines to use the "Other OS" option. Now that you killed it, the consoles are useless to us."
I assume the military is not using the machines to play games so the boxes do not encounter a situation where they need to upgrade their firmware.
Re:old news is old by MBGMorden · 2011-03-24 01:20 · Score: 1

Then again, since PS3's are sold at a loss, they really don't have much power to complain.
Yes they do. Just because a manufacturer's business practices are akin to gambling (selling systems in the hopes of making it up later) in no way affects a consumer's rights under law.

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Re:old news is old by hairyfeet · 2011-03-24 02:06 · Score: 1

And people wonder why Sony killed OtherOS? Look I think Sony pulled a dick move by killing a feature after sale, hell I would argue that is probably illegal, like selling a new car with this killer stereo and then sending a remote signal that killed it dead, but up until recently Sony was losing money on EVERY PS3 and I would argue that even now they are not making enough on PS3 hardware to stay afloat because by having to compete with the X360 which is just insanely cheap they have to cut those margins so thin you can read a newspaper through them!
It is really simple folks: the magic number in consoles is the "sell through" number, or the number of games you sell per console because thanks to licensing Sony and MSFT get a cut of EVERY game sold and while MSFT is currently laughing all the way to the bank with the highest number, something like 8 per console, Sony is barely surviving on 3. Then you add in these groups buying PS3s by the thousands that will never bring another dime in for Sony because these guys are buying absolutely ZERO after console product from them and you can see OtherOS was a BAD idea.
Now it WAS Sony's fault for putting OtherOS support on every console in the first place, just as it was Sony's fault to tie themselves to Blu Ray thus falling into the trap of being seen more as an "entertainment center" than a console. They sank too much money into cell, made an overly complex machine that works better as an HPC cluster than as a games console, and as a BD player better than a gaming machine. Most of my friends that have a PS3 have one or two PS3 exclusives for it and the rest of their games are all X360 so they can play them on XBL.
But the simple fact is Sony is hurting, they're hurting bad. Their sell through is shit, the console costs are too high when compared to the competition that are mopping up while not having nearly the hardware costs that they have, and having tens of thousands of machines taken straight from the line and locked in a lab where they'll never make a dime on them was just one more body blow they just couldn't take. Now I'm sure some will point out the official Sony line, but what did you expect them to say? "Look folks we're bleeding to death here?" boy MSFT would have had a field day with THAT press release!
So in the end what Sony should have done was offered from the start a "PS3 Cluster Edition" at $1000 a pop, with the higher costs justified by having say a fibre channel NIC added to the PS3 instead of offering OtherOS support on the bog standard hardware. this would have netted them enough cash they wouldn't lose a penny on PS3 cluster sales, the hackers could buy the kit if they wanted to have a cell CPU, groups like this would still get an HPC for a hell of a lot cheaper than a traditional model, and everyone could be happy. But lets not pretend Sony is making enough on PS3 units to afford having tens of thousands of units roll off the line into oblivion, they just ain't doing that well.

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Re:old news is old by TavisJohn · 2011-03-24 03:49 · Score: 1

Sony is selling them at a loss as it is. The only "Discount" Sony "may" sell them for would be to sell them to the military at the same price that the stores get them for... And the stores make almost no profit on them at all.
Plus unless the contract already existed BEFORE the "Other OS" was removed, Sony can refuse any contract that would require them to include it.
Re:old news is old by tlhIngan · 2011-03-24 04:11 · Score: 1

I assume the military is not using the machines to play games so the boxes do not encounter a situation where they need to upgrade their firmware.
Except, now the military has 1700+ PS3s and a supercomputer tha'ts going to get slower over time because they can't get replacements.
My PS3 is still 3.15, so yes it runs OtherOS. However there probably aren't many PS3s left capable of doing so, which means the supercomputer doesn't have easily replacable parts. And it costs something like $200+ to replace an out-of-warranty PS3 (to which Sony will helpfully give you the latest firmware).
A lot of this crap could be avoided if Sony just offered OtherOS as an option, or a way to downgrade.
And it's Sony's fault for hyping up the OtherOS feature during E3 and in all their marketing materials to differentiate themselves. If someone bought PS3s for that putpose and they're not making money, tough luck. It's a feature you advertised it could do, and you gripe when I use it?
Sweet irony would be to have the military use the same jailbreaks that Sony's going apeshit over with George Hotz and all the software tools and stuff.
Re:old news is old by JeffAtl · 2011-03-24 04:21 · Score: 1

Is the cost a fixed number though or is it affected by production volume. Typically the vast majority of the cost associated with fighter jets and pharmaceutical drugs are sunk R&D costs that actually make selling additional units less expensive. Also, are PS3 affected by simple economy of scale on the production side or are the production numbers just too small for that?
To be clear, I'm asking because I honestly don't know the cost dynamics of the PS3 or gaming consoles in general.
Re:old news is old by JeffAtl · 2011-03-24 04:26 · Score: 1

You do realize that the USAF would likely enter into contract with Sony for the PS3s right? It isnt like they're going to go down to the local tech store and say "gimmie all your PS3s heres a couple thousand dollars".
Are you sure they aren't checking out ebay? Probably using an obscure username like NavySuxBallz or USAF_KicksAzz69 to keep anyone from getting suspicious.
Re:old news is old by colinnwn · 2011-03-24 11:04 · Score: 1

I doubt in particular this one supercomputer of less than 2,000 PS3's caused them too much consternation or lost profit. They were probably worried about game cheats, game copying, and the tens of thousands of hacked personal PS3's that people would buy fewer games for. I always thought they should have offered a version for supercomputing that had the Other OS option, access to the GPU and any disabled cores, no Bluray, a gig eth port, and USB booting. I think they should have been able to justify it at a 50% premium over the current cost. That might have put it at about $900 at release, but today it should be more like $450.

A lot of Sony's problem isn't just this. It is stupid design decisions, like starting the PS3 run with Bluray (should have come with DVD and been refreshed and/or an add on when prices came down), and treating customers with such disrespect (by disabling Other OS and removing PS2 hardware support). I don't buy Sony items specifically because of some of their annoying business habits.
Re:old news is old by hairyfeet · 2011-03-24 15:17 · Score: 1

Ever hear of 'death of a thousand cuts"? It isn't just this one, there were hundreds, probably thousands, doing this exact same trick. Hell I used to have a link to a website where every single day they were showing off yet another PS3 cluster. There were guys buying thousands and guys buying a half a dozen and guys buying just three or four.
But the point is every single one was another cut as the ONLY thing taking X360s out was RRoD and MSFT had new ones out to customers as fast as they could ship. I bet if you look at the sell through rate and then figured PS3 clusters beside it you'd find they are seriously hurting Sony's numbers.
Now are Sony a bunch of douches? Yes they are, as I said removing an advertised feature without compensation should be illegal. But if you look at the figure Sony has been pretty much dead last this entire generation. BD was too expensive, the cell is a PITA to port games to, one mistake after another. And I'd argue that OtherOS and so many machines being turned into clusters straight off the line was just one more kidney punch Sony can ill afford to take ATM.

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Re:old news is old by Phoghat · 2011-03-25 03:53 · Score: 1

Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these! Jeebus I'm old.

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So what's new? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-23 14:29 · Score: 2, Insightful

We covered this story back in December when the Condor first went online.

And ... what's changed?

Re:So what's new? by countertrolling · 2011-03-23 14:40 · Score: 1

Well, the days are a bit longer. The flowers are beginning to bloom. Don't you feel it?

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Re:So what's new? by eonlabs · 2011-03-23 15:59 · Score: 1

The anniversary of the removal of the install other os option is this week. It's also been a little over a year since I've purchased anything from sony. Other than that, not much.

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Upgrades. by Master+Moose · 2011-03-23 14:29 · Score: 5, Funny

Watch out for that next firmware update!

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. . .gone when the morning comes

Re:Upgrades. by rekoil · 2011-03-23 14:32 · Score: 1

Came here to say exactly that. Done in one :)
Re:Upgrades. by dicobalt · 2011-03-23 14:52 · Score: 2

I would worry more about Sony lawyers. They have got to be salivating at the Air Force's bankroll and trying to come up with a reason to sue.
Re:Upgrades. by sribe · 2011-03-23 15:08 · Score: 1

No kidding. I suppose they have a special license from Sony to be doing this?
No, they're as screwed as anybody else if they allow the firmware update. And I believe (though I'm not 100% sure) that I read that they're joining the class action lawsuit against Sony. (You know you've made a bad decision when it results in being sued by the US government! OK, well, *I* would know it--not so sure about the flaming fucktards running Sony right now...)
Re:Upgrades. by sribe · 2011-03-23 15:12 · Score: 4, Informative

I would worry more about Sony lawyers. They have got to be salivating at the Air Force's bankroll and trying to come up with a reason to sue.
I don't think you're kidding, but OMG, I nearly fell out of my chair laughing when I read that. Seriously, unless they're delusional psychopaths[1], they're not salivating, they're shitting their pants at the thought of being sued by the Air Force. You don't sell something to the US government with certain advertised capabilities, then take away those capabilities, then sue the US government for using them. Instead, you get sued by the US government until you beg for mercy.
[1] This is a possibility.
Re:Upgrades. by Bacon+Bits · 2011-03-23 15:23 · Score: 5, Insightful

Yes, that's the wise thing to do. Pick on the customer who not only has more lawyers, who not only has special laws which apply to their behavior as a defense organization, who not only has more money than Sony, but who also has more friends in Congress.
If you're the 9th grade bully you don't go picking on the 12th grade wrestling star who's the son of the Principal. Pick battles you can win.
The wise thing to do is to produce a new SKU of the PS3 designed for distributed computing and development which allows the Other OS option and has a special SDK but, for example, can't join PSN (and perhaps cannot even play PS3 games) or which uses a special PSN for this purpose. Then you no have a way to sell these devices to your customers and you can increase the price per unit because you can no longer expect to recoup your losses on game software purchases. Indeed, all you should need to do is put in an option that lets you enable a distributed computing mode. Perhaps entering a software key which the bootstrap firmware will recognize. Then it's just a matter of selling a site license software key. You don't even need a truly different SKU.
"But people will hack it!" Like they already have? This way you get paid for legitimate people to use your product as they wish. You do what you can to prevent loss from hacking and the like, but it's not a valid excuse for not selling what people are demanding from you. The secret of capitalism is to give people what they want at a price they will pay, not to punish them for doing something you didn't expect.

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The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
Re:Upgrades. by inflex · 2011-03-23 15:25 · Score: 3, Insightful

No, I think salivating is right - because it'll mean a very long, protracted law suit likely - which means a lot of billable hours and at a higher rate because after all, they're not just dealing with anyone, they're handling the US Govt (realistic or not). Win or lose, it doesn't matter.
Re:Upgrades. by dakameleon · 2011-03-23 15:39 · Score: 1

Surely IBM sells "computers" based on the Cell processor? I assume all this demand is because it was available as cheap commodity hardware more than anything that gears a PS3 to being a speciality clustered supercomputer.

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Re:Upgrades. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-23 15:51 · Score: 3, Informative

bladecenter qs22 starts at $9995 for two processor 3.2 ghz.
Granted nobody is supposed to pay MSRP but even that price is order of magnitude and a multiple over PS3 retail
Re:Upgrades. by FritzTheCat1030 · 2011-03-23 16:12 · Score: 1

the Government is not a regular customer. They didn't go buy a thousand or so PS3s off the shelf.
Of course not, that would be un-American. Instead, they contracted Boeing or Halliburton, who ran their usual act of hiring a circle of private consultants taking massive cuts of the pie, and bought the PS3s for $750,000 a piece instead of $399 and stuck the taxpayers with the bill.
Re:Upgrades. by jesseck · 2011-03-23 16:42 · Score: 3, Interesting

So, to counter this, the Air Force needs to convince DHS and FBI that clusters of PS3s are more efficient at processing biometric databases. That would help ensure that, no matter what Sony does to keep OtherOS and Jailbreak out of the PS3, doing so would be a hindrance to our national security.
Re:Upgrades. by jelizondo · 2011-03-23 16:42 · Score: 3, Interesting

Oh no, no suing. Air Force gentlemen are much more devious...
In the next firmware update, the Air Force bombs Tokyo instead of Libya and blame it on Sony!
See what Sony can do against that

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Re:Upgrades. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-23 16:58 · Score: 2, Insightful

I have to agree with GP here. I can't imagine very many things less pleasant for a lawyer than standing up and explaining to the jury that the feature was disabled because of the evil haxxorz abusing it....
And then having an air force general take the stand (in uniform) to testify as to how that very same feature is being used to defeat al-qaeda by the brave men and women of the US armed forces.....
Re:Upgrades. by westlake · 2011-03-23 17:22 · Score: 1

The PS3 cluster took 1,500 =2,000 loss-leader consoles + spares out of retail distribution channels.
With no return to Sony from video game and Blu-Ray or on-line services. While cannibalizing sales of Sonu's own commercial HPC.product.
What the geek is asking for is a hardware subsidy from Sony's consumer products division - to be paid, ultimately, by PS3 gamers.
It is not going to happen.
The OtherOS made its exit from the PS2 with the introduction of the PS2 Slim. No one built a HPC cluster from the PS3 believed the game was going to go the whole nine innings.
Re:Upgrades. by dainichi · 2011-03-23 17:35 · Score: 1

(You know you've made a bad decision when it results in being sued by the US government! OK, well, *I* would know it--not so sure about the flaming fucktards running Sony right now...)
Nah, they wouldn't know a Bad Idea(TM) If it came up to them, married their only daughter and left a flaming pile of s**t on their desk.

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Re:Upgrades. by Kryptonian+Jor-El · 2011-03-23 18:00 · Score: 1

So, people used Sony's poor business model to their advantage, and you're mad at them? Don't hate the player, hate the game.

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Re:Upgrades. by BKX · 2011-03-23 18:13 · Score: 1

This. Particularly sentence 2. Also, the Air Force, being a part of the US Government can exempt itself from lawsuits at will.
Re:Upgrades. by c1ay · 2011-03-23 18:25 · Score: 1

Just wait until some of the machines fail and need to be replaced and the Air Force finds out they can't get what they bought anymore. Sony might want to preemptively work out an arrangement to keep from getting sued.

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Re:Upgrades. by lennier1 · 2011-03-23 19:04 · Score: 1

Just claim that the target coordinates have been coordinated by that PS3 cluster.
Re:Upgrades. by mwvdlee · 2011-03-23 19:41 · Score: 1

Everybody's claiming the Air Force could Sue Sony over the OtherOS feature. But (1) are the Air Force even using the feature or do they have the machines hacked at a lower level? Perhaps Sony even provided them with custom firmware? (2) assuming the Air Force used the OtherOS feature, do they have any more legal rights than the rest of us? Apparently, Sony has stated in their EULA's that it could remove features.

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Re:Upgrades. by Bacon+Bits · 2011-03-23 20:17 · Score: 1

No one built a HPC cluster from the PS3 believed the game was going to go the whole nine innings.
Bullshit.
It's a cluster of 1,700 PS3s which means 1,700 consumer grade hard drives. Let's assume they've thought of this and changed to, say, Western Digital Caviar Blacks (so-called enterprise grade). Those have a 1.2 million hours MTBF. Normal consumer grade hard drives are closer to 750,000 hours.
1,200,000 hours MTBF / 24 hours per day = 50,000 mean drive days between failures
50,000 mean drive days between failures / 1,700 drives = ~30 days between failure
Consumer grade drives would be about 60% of that (~18 days).
Therefore on a system this large you would expect to be replacing or repairing between one and two PS3s each month just due to normal hard drive failures under preferred conditions on average. Admittedly, hard drives are the most common failure type, but there will be systems failing due to bad RAM, bad power supply, defective system board, etc. Nobody builds a system this large without running these numbers. You don't build a system this large unless you can establish a steady supply of replacement hardware for the life of the project.

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The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
Re:Upgrades. by Chrisq · 2011-03-23 20:19 · Score: 1

Oh no, no suing. Air Force gentlemen are much more devious...
In the next firmware update, the Air Force bombs Tokyo instead of Libya and blame it on Sony!
See what Sony can do against that
It started already. Do you think that it was a coincidence that there was a huge earthquake when the US military was testing a secret military satellite?
Re:Upgrades. by F34nor · 2011-03-23 21:57 · Score: 1

Lol. Sony is so fucking stupid they actually sued their own god damn selves. With intellectual capacity like that pissing off the USAF is the last of their worries.
Re:Upgrades. by Registered+Coward+v2 · 2011-03-23 22:13 · Score: 1

I would worry more about Sony lawyers. They have got to be salivating at the Air Force's bankroll and trying to come up with a reason to sue.
I don't think you're kidding, but OMG, I nearly fell out of my chair laughing when I read that. Seriously, unless they're delusional psychopaths[1], they're not salivating, they're shitting their pants at the thought of being sued by the Air Force. You don't sell something to the US government with certain advertised capabilities, then take away those capabilities, then sue the US government for using them. Instead, you get sued by the US government until you beg for mercy.
[1] This is a possibility.
No. You simply don't upgrade them to take away the capability.
If one broke I doubt they even bother to send it back. Just set it aside for parts. The time and effort to process a return is probably moor ethan it's worth.

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Re:Upgrades. by nosferatu1001 · 2011-03-24 00:36 · Score: 1

EULA for PSN, not for the PS3
Re:Upgrades. by Bert64 · 2011-03-24 00:57 · Score: 1

And what if they want to replace a broken node? No new units being sold today have OtherOS capability, so their cluster would gradually shrink in size until it became useless.

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Re:Upgrades. by CronoCloud · 2011-03-24 00:59 · Score: 1

Sony sells those, they cost a LOT more than a PS3 though, and I don't know if they'll sell them to just any joe schmoe who wants to run LInux on one. In fact, I'm not for certain they can run YDL. They have more RAM and a second hard drive too!
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/03/sony-announces-lower-cost-ps3-dev-tools.ars
http://www.scei.co.jp/corporate/release/090324e.html
Re:Upgrades. by Byzantine · 2011-03-24 02:41 · Score: 1

I doubt if billable hours are a concern. Sony needs lawyers so often, they probably have them on staff—i.e., on salary. There are a ton of lawyers who are willing to make less money if it also means having an 8–5, 5-days-a-week, job instead of a 90-hour workweek.
Re:Upgrades. by WarlockD · 2011-03-24 02:44 · Score: 1

They probably can't. IBM blade's cost almost 5k per cpu. I doubt that whatever deal they got with IBM allows them to get these chips allows that. If anything, I suspect its this reason they pulled the linux option and blamed it on the hackers as a smokescreen.
Re:Upgrades. by Buelldozer · 2011-03-24 03:36 · Score: 1

Sony Lawyers vs. United States Air Force
Round I: FIGHT!
Sony Lawyers use: File Lawsuit
Lawsuit has no effect.
United States Air Force uses: A10 Thunderbolt with GAU-8
It is SUPER effective!
United States Air Force wins!
Re:Upgrades. by Sir.Cracked · 2011-03-24 03:38 · Score: 1

The problem with your little scheme is this bit:
"and you can increase the price per unit because you can no longer expect to recoup your losses on game software purchases."
And that's where you hit a problem. Selling something to the government at a higher rate than what you sell it at to the general public, or, really anyone else, is itself illegal, and will get your company into a mess of trouble. You're right that they could argue that it's not the same, bla bla bla, but try getting a jury to agree that the military, aka, the government, aka, the taxpayer, aka THEM, should pay MORE for a version with Fewer features, well, Best of luck with that.
And given that this "version" will have been made specifically for the military, it's going to look an AMAZING amount like them trying to overcharge and and defraud the government. This would be a huge liability for Sony, for little gain, and open a distracting front into a market they've never expressed an interest in aside from a few "Gee whiz, look what our game console can do" PR pieces.

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Re:Upgrades. by Antisyzygy · 2011-03-24 03:55 · Score: 1

The secret of capitalism is to give people what they want at a price they will pay, not to punish them for doing something you didn't expect.
Clearly, the US corporation boards are full of a bunch of idiots, because hardly anyone obeys this principal. Record companies, movie companies, cell telecomm, internet companies, cable companies, Sony, Apple, etc. all punish you if you use what you purchase from them how you want to use it or charge you up the wazoo for simple cheap features (like SMS text messages).

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Re:Upgrades. by popoutman · 2011-03-24 04:13 · Score: 1

EULA /= Contract.
The EULA is nothing more than a wishlist by the software developer. EULAs on Hardware are non-relevant as it's covered by the relevant Sale of Goods act.
Enterprise customers rely on contracts to define what the appropriate behaviour is.
EULAs are nothing more than an attempt to bully and browbeat customers, and there is no hope of legally binding EULAs in the EU.

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Re:Upgrades. by Registered+Coward+v2 · 2011-03-24 04:59 · Score: 1

And what if they want to replace a broken node? No new units being sold today have OtherOS capability, so their cluster would gradually shrink in size until it became useless.
I'd be surpassed if Sony wasn't willing to work with them if they ran into that problem. Government contractors generally don't like to upset their major customer.
I'd be interested to see how they did the buy. If they went via and existing purchase vehicle the supplier probably has some pull with Sony or whomever they bought them from. They'd use that to get what they want.
Just because you can't buy one retail doesn't mean you can't get it via another channel.

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Re:Upgrades. by Xarius · 2011-03-24 05:19 · Score: 1

Is this "billable hours" thing even true? I'd expect a company such as Sony to retain a law firm rather than hiring lawyers on an hourly rate? That's how my company works, and they're an international energy utility...

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C17H21NO4
Re:Upgrades. by alexandre_ganso · 2011-03-24 08:59 · Score: 1

Still, the lawyers get their share. All of you don't seem to realize this is nothing else but lawyers' shit. Work it or not, sony will pay them. A lot. Even better if they win. If not, their usual 350$/hour.
Now remember why you went to CS/warcraft in the first place.
Re:Upgrades. by Agripa · 2011-03-24 13:05 · Score: 1

How this SKU would be different than PS3 Dev or PS3 Test units already in production?
It would be painted green?
Re:Upgrades. by Bacon+Bits · 2011-03-24 16:13 · Score: 1

You're not selling it at a higher price. You're selling access to a software feature not normally included with the standard device [any longer]. It's the equivalent of the police package for an automobile.
If you go out and buy a PS3 today off the shelf, it's not going to have Other OS. If you want to do that, you've got to hack it. While you might argue it's the equivalent of jailbreaking a phone, the courts have yet to rule on it. Either way, you're not going to have vendor support for the hardware and it's going to void the warranty. That's a lot of risk to subsume.

--
The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.

DMCA broken by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-23 14:31 · Score: 1

With the "Other OS" removed, doesn't it mean that the supercomputer is violating the DCMA?

Re:DMCA broken by Seumas · 2011-03-23 14:36 · Score: 3, Funny

No, because they don't *have* to update the firmware and as long as they're not planning to connect to the Playstation Network with it, they don't even *need* to update to the latest firmware that removes that functionality. Of course, if they did have to, I bet it sure would come in handy if there was some guy who could "jailbreak" the system to allow people to make further use of it. *ahem*
Re:DMCA broken by pavon · 2011-03-23 15:33 · Score: 2

That doesn't sound right. I haven't used it myself, but I understood that the other OS had access to all the Cell cores, it just couldn't access the RSX GPU, which wouldn't really matter for a number crunching cluster.
Re:DMCA broken by dakameleon · 2011-03-23 15:40 · Score: 2

It might - the GPU is usually the bit that crunches vectors best, and that is something I imagine to be fairly useful for the kinds of purposes the Air Force might put it to. Anyone know if the Cell is more suited to this task?

--
Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
Re:DMCA broken by Cwix · 2011-03-23 15:52 · Score: 1

Your right I think... I don't know I cant find anything definition either way. I do know that other os was hobbled to some extent. The graphics card is often better at very parallel tasks then the processor(IIRRC)... thats why you see all the distributed computing clients that can use them. So Ill stand by my point that its very likely the air force isn't using the same other os feature that we all know and love.

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You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
Re:DMCA broken by snkiz · 2011-03-23 16:41 · Score: 3, Interesting

AFAK The original design of the ps3 didn't even have a GPU, the cell is more than capable. Those 10,000$ IBM cell blades, they are designed for high level graphics processing, to be sold to the likes of Pixar and such. (Note: I do not know if Pixar is using them, its an example.) I'm not sure why Sony ended up going with Nvidia GPU's. Possibly because they were already late to the game, the game dev's were pretty pissed off about having almost nothing they could port easily, and Nvidia was the compromise. I had Linux in mine, with a bit of hacking you could get the frame buffer to run out of the GPU's memory, witch made the memory crunch suck less. Had Other OS remained I'm sure some one could have built a 3D driver on top of a couple of the cells. I read rumours that a plan was being hatched before Sony pissed on the fire and raised a stink.
Re:DMCA broken by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-23 17:26 · Score: 1

OtherOS had access to 6 of the 7
Re:DMCA broken by TheThiefMaster · 2011-03-23 19:17 · Score: 1

AFAK The original design of the ps3 didn't even have a GPU, the cell is more than capable.
You're right about the first part AFAIK, but no, it isn't. The cell is far too weedy for doing realtime rendering. It doesn't even have dedicated texture filtering support, so it would have to emulate that. A Bi/TriLerp being a horribly expensive thing to emulate...
The cell gets used a fair bit to take some load off of the GPU, by doing pre-culling of triangles and post-process effects, but it's still an order of magnitude less powerful than the GPU is.
Re:DMCA broken by 91degrees · 2011-03-23 20:30 · Score: 1

True. But will Sony sell the devkit to absolutely anyone? Also (unless Sony do things differently from Microsoft), the software won't run on a stock PS3 without going through Sony's compliance tests and being commercially published.
Re:DMCA broken by nosferatu1001 · 2011-03-24 00:37 · Score: 1

The *original* PS3 design had no dedicated GPU. Then they found out how much perofrmance sucked and did a sony hack job by adding the RSX
Re:DMCA broken by snkiz · 2011-03-24 01:23 · Score: 1

I don't think it sucked per say, just they ran out time to make it work, it would have also ment there was nothing familar in the ps3, witch would slowed the first wave of games even more than their "revolutionary" design already had. Your also forgetting the whole setup is memory starved, putting extra pressure on the cell to have high throughput, leaving little room on the cells to do graphics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_(microprocessor)#Video_processing_card it can be done, just not in any way we're used to. Ground up development is slow.
Re:DMCA broken by jgtg32a · 2011-03-24 01:54 · Score: 1

It isn't illegal if we do it.
Re:DMCA broken by matt_gaia · 2011-03-24 11:20 · Score: 1

No. But it's illegal if you distribute how to do so (e.g. GeoHot). Doing it to your own machine will get you kicked off of PSN if you're retarded enough to put it online.
Ah, screw it....I'm tired of saying the same damn thing...
SONY...let us have our free games^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Linux back!!!1!1one!!1eleventy!!1!111!
Re:DMCA broken by matt_gaia · 2011-03-24 12:24 · Score: 1

Meh.... reading comprehension == fail, today
I still stand by my point though, since the USAF aren't violating the DMCA because of a) they're the US Government (See GGP post) and b) if they were jailbreaking the systems (highly, highly doubtful), they're still not distributing how to do the jailbreak, which is where Sony is focusing the suits.

Like in the movies... by _0xd0ad · 2011-03-23 14:32 · Score: 4, Funny

The Air Force is also using the Condor to process ground-based radar images of space objects, again with extraordinary clarity. Barnell shows images of a space shuttle orbiting Earth at 5 miles a second. Without Condor processing, the shuttle image is a blurry black triangle. With Condor processing, it is sharp and distinct. It’s clear that its payload doors are open.

Zoom! Enhance!

Re:Like in the movies... by mindwhip · 2011-03-23 20:50 · Score: 1

Now zoom in on the reflection on his sunglasses and flip the image.
Now show me the reflection on that cars fender and enhance it.
Now we can see what was around the corner...

--
[The Universe] has gone offline.
Re:Like in the movies... by Antisyzygy · 2011-03-24 04:00 · Score: 1

The funniest times that happens is when they somehow pan left or right from a static image and call it some sort of extrapolation.

--
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".

Firmware updates? by Zuriel · 2011-03-23 14:33 · Score: 1

Hope noone runs a firmware update, they'll have to call Geohot to get Linux back on it.

War Games by xs650 · 2011-03-23 14:33 · Score: 4, Funny

Gives new meaning to the term "War Gaming"

Halp by atari2600a · 2011-03-23 14:35 · Score: 4, Funny

I accidentally other os. Is this dangerous?

Re:Halp by KnowledgeKeeper · 2011-03-24 02:32 · Score: 1

I accidentally other os. Is this dangerous?
Greetings, professor Falken... shall we play a game?

--
It is always better to be a first grade version of yourself than a second grade version of someone else.

Re:Fuck you sony by bongey · 2011-03-23 14:36 · Score: 1, Informative

goatse link above

Can you imagine by milonssecretsn · 2011-03-23 14:45 · Score: 2, Funny

Can you imagine what it would be like if it was made instead of 1716 XBOX 360's?

They would be replacing red-ringed XBOXes more often than scientists had to replace vacuum tubes on ENIAC.

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Hey, I was only kidding. You don't have to MOD me "Troll" . . . again . . . .

Re:Can you imagine by gandhi_2 · 2011-03-23 14:51 · Score: 2

I tried to. But for some reason, I can only imagine a beowulf cluster of them... ):

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THL phish sticks
Re:Can you imagine by carbonUnit42 · 2011-03-23 15:09 · Score: 2

Oh...it would be a 'cluster' all right........ ;-)
Re:Can you imagine by snkiz · 2011-03-23 16:46 · Score: 1

Um, arn't the 360's 3 core cell's? I'm sure they'd be capable if you managed to scrape Micosoft out them. http://hardware.teamxbox.com/articles/xbox/1144/The-Xbox-360-System-Specifications/p1
Re:Can you imagine by TheThiefMaster · 2011-03-23 23:00 · Score: 1

"Current Xbox"?
The current xbox is the xbox 360, which has a 3-core powerpc cpu. Each core of it bears a striking resemblance to the cell's PPE.
Re:Can you imagine by MrNiCeGUi · 2011-03-23 23:54 · Score: 1

The link you posted refers to the original Xbox, released in 2001 and discontinued in 2005. The previous poster was correct, the Xbox 360 does indeed have a 3-core 3.2 GHz PowerPC CPU, similar but not quite the same with the PS3's Cell.
Re:Can you imagine by stiggle · 2011-03-24 00:12 · Score: 1

"I've come to kill your Monster!"
Re:Can you imagine by Neil+Boekend · 2011-03-24 00:28 · Score: 1

I am sorry. I seem to have messed up.

--
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
Re:Can you imagine by snkiz · 2011-03-24 01:03 · Score: 1

It says 360 right in the link address and the title of the chart "bo 360 System Performance - Draft" granted it appears to be and old link, from before the 360 was actually released. Maybe that is the source of your confusion? It was the first hit on Google anyhow. And Google couldn't be wrong could it? /scarcasm

Not too good for them by Clsid · 2011-03-23 14:48 · Score: 1

Sony is shutting down Linux and I think it might have to do out of fear that if a lot of people like the Air Force guys from the article start buying PS3 as mere CPUs, all of the sudden Sony will be subsidizing a lot more than they thought they could get in return with the sales of games.

Re:Not too good for them by mug+funky · 2011-03-23 16:10 · Score: 1

considering this has been happening since the xbox 1 days, wtf did sony even try the loss-leading model?
like my fucking phone company "improving" my service by ensuring i always run out of credit with the new pricing model. they're like "oops! sorry! we actually gave you too good a deal, so we'll have to fix that now that you're signed up. i'm sure you didn't sign up because of the fact it was a good deal, so it's not like we're misrepresenting ourselves or anything"
Re:Not too good for them by hedwards · 2011-03-23 16:48 · Score: 1

Sony makes a profit on each PS3 they sell, after they stripped out the extra chips and found other ways to economize they do make money on each console they ship. Just the amount is tiny compared to what they make licensing games to run on it.
Re:Not too good for them by nosferatu1001 · 2011-03-24 00:39 · Score: 1

Then cancel your contract, without penalty, and walk away.

Converse would be more fun by snsh · 2011-03-23 14:51 · Score: 1

Would be cooler to have a PS3 game where you get to control 1,716 USAF planes.

Sensible by wvmarle · 2011-03-23 14:54 · Score: 1

Gaming consoles to do graphics processing, makes sense. They must have quite some specialised graphics related horse power, considering their planned output.

examples of image processing? by v1 · 2011-03-23 14:56 · Score: 1

They mention what improvement it can do but I wasn't able to find any examples. Anyone at least have that space shuttle example they mentioned?

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I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.

When Nodes Fail, They're Screwed by Eponymous+Coward · 2011-03-23 15:01 · Score: 1

How do they deal with nodes failing? Did they buy a bunch of spares? If not, they might be in trouble because you can't buy the OtherOS PS3's anymore.

Re:When Nodes Fail, They're Screwed by b4dc0d3r · 2011-03-23 16:04 · Score: 1

No worries, it's the air force. They will just set up a no fly zone around Sony, and the problem will solve itself.
Re:When Nodes Fail, They're Screwed by hedwards · 2011-03-23 16:51 · Score: 1

I'm pretty sure what they do is just crack them. At this point I'm pretty sure they've got some way of putting older firmware on the devices, and Sony can't do anything about it. The Federal government tends to quash law suits about this sort of thing before they get anywhere.
Re:When Nodes Fail, They're Screwed by PhunkySchtuff · 2011-03-25 09:24 · Score: 1

I'm pretty sure that as part of negotiating their purchase with Sony, they also have the necessary keys to sign their own code, thereby negating the need to run OtherOS (with limited hardware access) or be at the whim of Sony to keep features like OtherOS.

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Specialist Mac support for creative pros, Melbourne

Woah by ae1294 · 2011-03-23 15:05 · Score: 1

Hard resets must be a bitch...

The Condor Supercomputer by arun84h · 2011-03-23 15:06 · Score: 1

has no games.

Obligatory by cashman73 · 2011-03-23 15:07 · Score: 1

Shall we play a game?

Re:Sony is the US enemy by webmistressrachel · 2011-03-23 15:14 · Score: 3, Informative

Fuckin' Goatse in the library again!!!

This is just another of those occasions when you WISH for a better content filter system... in the same library, when you try to look at a little bit of sleaze like Facebook you are told "Fortinet blah blah forget it".

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This tagline was transcoded to result in at least one smirk. If you experience failure to smirk, please consult your Gen

Re:They're the airforce by sribe · 2011-03-23 15:14 · Score: 2

1) they have spares 2) they know how to hack firmware 3) they're not afeared of apples lawyers

Apple's lawyers? When did Apple's lawyers start enforcing Sony's EULAs for Sony against Sony's users???

1716? by EricX2 · 2011-03-23 15:15 · Score: 2

It was 1760 back in December, does that mean 44 have died since then? Are they sure they aren't using Xbox 360s?

Rome, you say? by staghorne · 2011-03-23 15:19 · Score: 1

The Air Force's Research Lab in Rome

I guess that explains Slashdot's choice of "military" icon...

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Paddle faster, I hear banjos

Re:Good for supercomputing and not games? by webmistressrachel · 2011-03-23 15:20 · Score: 2

Despite being slightly trolly about your opinion of PS3 games, you are probably nonetheless correct.

The PS3 is massively parallelised (spelling Nazis - go!) compared to XBOX, and is therefore harder to fully utilize by games progammers than the more serial XBOX but for supercomputing there is likely a notable difference, hence the adoption.

The parent troll's comment about RROD probably had a ring of truth to it, too, as the Cell CPU is on IBM originally intended for, you guessed it, supercomputing and re-purposed for this task.

--
This tagline was transcoded to result in at least one smirk. If you experience failure to smirk, please consult your Gen

Re:Slashdot editors sleeping... again by Grey+Ninja · 2011-03-23 15:22 · Score: 1

Your post really didn't sit well with me, so I looked it up. I found some conflicting viewpoints in different style guides, but Wikipedia surprisingly seems most concise (because it represents multiple views).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acronym_and_initialism#Representing_plurals_and_possessives

Re:Good for supercomputing and not games? by webmistressrachel · 2011-03-23 15:22 · Score: 1

Damn. 3am mistakes --

"the Cell CPU is ONE IBM originally intended for, you guessed it, supercomputing, and re-purposed for the task of gaming".

Sorry about that.

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This tagline was transcoded to result in at least one smirk. If you experience failure to smirk, please consult your Gen

Hope they don't need to service one by Fallen+Kell · 2011-03-23 15:23 · Score: 1

Because if they do, the latest firmware gets automatically installed.

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We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"

this will be big news come September by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-23 15:25 · Score: 1

On Sunday afternoons, in lieu of the cancelled NFL season the USAF supercomputer will be running 15 high-def Madden games in real time.

What "stuff is for" by mcrbids · 2011-03-23 15:29 · Score: 4, Insightful

There's an attitude that's commonplace among with regards to stuff that you are supposed to do a particular thing with it. When you buy a can of Pringles, you are supposed to throw away the can! You buy a microwave for cooking, and the PS3 is for video games, and crayons are for kids to draw with, etc.

It's considered anachronistic to use crayons as an electric insulator, or PS3 for calculating aerodynamics, or use a microwave for generating and studying R/F interference patterns. And making long-range communications equipment from a Pringles can is.... just odd.

Yet none of these alternative uses would be particularly surprising to the engineering type, who think nothing of making a filter out of pantie-hose and a plastic butter container, because our type not only thinks outside the box, we decide what would be the best way to slice up the box in order to satisfy the problem at hand.

Good show Air Force!

--
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.

Re:What "stuff is for" by DarthJohn · 2011-03-23 19:51 · Score: 1

What's scary is that people are starting to believe that a manufacturer is perfectly within their rights to limit what you can and cannot do with your stuff after you've bought it from them.
I walked into a conversation about PS3 jail-breaking and asked how a hammer manufacturer can limit my use of the hammer I purchased. Should I have to purchase a framing hammer, a roofing hammer, a birdhouse hammer, etc.? I completely gave up on the idea of ever having a serious conversation with those coworkers when the consensus was yes, the hammer manufacturer could tell me that I can only build birdhouses with some specific hammer that I purchased and if I want to build a porch I would have to buy at least two other hammers.
Re:What "stuff is for" by Antisyzygy · 2011-03-24 04:02 · Score: 1

Win for corporate America.

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That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
Re:What "stuff is for" by StikyPad · 2011-03-24 04:54 · Score: 1

It sounds like your sarcasm detector is spot on.

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https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere

Specialized graphics h/w may not be useful here by perpenso · 2011-03-23 15:32 · Score: 1

Gaming consoles to do graphics processing, makes sense. They must have quite some specialised graphics related horse power, considering their planned output.

Not necessarily. The specialized hardware is designed to take a mathematical model of a world and to render that model into an image. Image processing, or more accurately computer vision - the part of image processing and artificial intelligence that is more relevant here, goes in the opposite direction. Computer vision takes an image and tries to generate mathematical models that describe the objects in the scene. For example recognizing if an object is a rock or a tank or an ambulance.

So I suspect the performance advantage offered by PS3 hardware is from the more general components not the specialized graphics components. Solving these sort of problems are really about number crunching.

Re:Specialized graphics h/w may not be useful here by wvmarle · 2011-03-23 15:44 · Score: 1

IIRC from previous discussions regarding this platform, is that the PS3 is particularly well suited for doing fourier transforms and related analyses - graphics cards were also very capable in filtering signals in the seti@home project. Sounds somewhat similar to me. Edge detection, for example. Filtering signals from the noise where the noise is almost as bad as the signal.
From those discussions I also recall that the PS3 is not considered strong in general purpose number crunching work; your run-of-the-mill Intel is doing much better across the board. It's these specific tasks where specialised units like the PS3 can shine. Them being marketed as gaming consoles of course helps in keeping volume up and cost down, making them almost disposable and at least easily replaceable in case of hardware failure.
Re:Specialized graphics h/w may not be useful here by VortexCortex · 2011-03-23 16:36 · Score: 2
From those discussions I also recall that the PS3 is not considered strong in general purpose number crunching work; your run-of-the-mill Intel is doing much better across the board. It's these specific tasks where [specialized] units like the PS3 can shine. Them being marketed as gaming consoles of course helps in keeping volume up and cost down, making them almost disposable and at least easily replaceable in case of hardware failure.

(emphasis mine) -- There is an issue with this statement. You assume that newly purchased units can actually be used beyond the capacity to run Sony signed code.
Let's not forget that the PS3 should only be used for gaming according to their manufacturer. As I recall, Sony removed the "other-os" option and are suing those that wish to re-enable that option. Thus, the units that the USAF are using are not disposable because they can not be easily replaced in case of hardware failure...
...Unless:
- A supply cache of units was purchased while Sony had not disabled the other-OS option.
- You operate above the DMCA, and "cracking" the PS3s is considered a "simple" task.
- Sony loses their suit against George Hotz, and cracking what you purchase becomes legal.
In any event the PS3 is not currently a suitable choice for use in a mesh-super-computer, even when only performing the specific calculations that it excels at, given the current legal situation and state of copyright law.
Interesting to note: Sony won their battle against the movie industry when Sony's Beta Cassettes were targeted as a helping/promoting piracy on the grounds that Beta Cassettes had the capacity for non-infringing uses. The USAF is now using Sony PS3s in a substantial display of non-infringing use, which lends credence to the idea that cracking the PS3 firmware has the capacity for non-infringing uses.
I hope George Hotz's lawyers site the USAF PS3 supercomputer and the Beta Cassettes ruling and win us all Game Console DMCA exemption in the process. (Ironic that Sony's own favorable legal precedent could now bite them in the ass.)
Re:Specialized graphics h/w may not be useful here by johanatan · 2011-03-23 16:53 · Score: 2

I think both of you are missing the fact that it's the Cell processor and not necessarily the graphics card which is the draw here. One master core; lots of slave cores. Surely a joy to program highly-parallel applications on.

Of course, the graphics card can be utilized with OpenCL (but I rather suspect that is mere icing on the cake).
Re:Specialized graphics h/w may not be useful here by PhunkySchtuff · 2011-03-25 09:23 · Score: 1

What if, as part of your purchasing agreement with Sony (what, you think they walked in to JB Hi Fi and purchased 1500 PS3s?) you signed the relevant NDAs and negotiated a developer key for your own private internal use, allowing you to create signed code that runs on a bog-standard PS3?
OtherOS, even when it existed, didn't have full access to all the PS3 hardware, the hypervisor blocked access to the fancy graphics hardware.
If you're running properly signed code, you have full access to the hardware.
I doubt the US military would have purchased well over 1000 units without having full access to the machine through being able to run signed code.

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Specialist Mac support for creative pros, Melbourne

Re:Yawn by CronoCloud · 2011-03-23 15:38 · Score: 1

You still get 6 SPE's under Linux, ever watch the PS3 boot up Linux? Look for the 2 Big penguins and the 6 little ones. And if you're clustering PS3's you're probably running headless.

Not updating over internet by perpenso · 2011-03-23 15:39 · Score: 1

... You don't sell something to the US government with certain advertised capabilities, then take away those capabilities, then sue the US government for using them ...

The Air Force is probably not connecting to the internet and getting firmware updates from Sony.

Re:Not updating over internet by Danieljury3 · 2011-03-23 17:41 · Score: 1

So an Ethernet cable in the right place can seriously ruin the air force's day
Re:Not updating over internet by Kryptonian+Jor-El · 2011-03-23 17:49 · Score: 1, Informative

Yeah but they were sold under the pretense that they could repair and expand, but every current and future PS3 cannot have its firmware downgraded, and doesnt have access to OtherOS (legally at least) So once they run out of spares, theyre boned

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Re:Not updating over internet by Vectormatic · 2011-03-23 20:04 · Score: 1

i guess it being the airforce, they have some serious network security in place, so it wouldnt surprise me at all to see all of sony's IPs blacklisted in their firewall anyway (or they should, just to be sure)
so i guess it would take a 3G-ethernet modem and a cable to ruin their day

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People, what a bunch of bastards
Re:Not updating over internet by stiggle · 2011-03-24 00:04 · Score: 2

They have given access to numerous other agencies and universities (Cornell, Dartmouth College, Florida, Maryland, Tennesse) to the system - whose access will be over the internet.

you have it backwards by Anonymous Coward · 2011-03-23 15:58 · Score: 1

All but one cell core is available when running under the hypervisor. No direct access to the graphics hardware, tho.

What would be amusing? by the_Bionic_lemming · 2011-03-23 16:02 · Score: 1

What would be amusing about this is if it was disinformation.

think about it, third world countries snapping PS-3's in the hopes of building something better than a video arcade?

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_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!

To find out why they are doing this ... by dbIII · 2011-03-23 16:09 · Score: 1

To find out why they are doing this try contacting a vendor that sells Cell based servers. It's as if they are pricing them deliberately so that nobody will buy them. When I tried I could have purchased eight fairly equivalent Intel based systems for the price of one Cell based machine. Meanwhile a playstation with the same processor as a low end Cell server is under ten percent of the price. It's almost as if it a a vector of a price inflate and bribe scam - maybe it is considering how hard the sales guy tried to be my friend (and dropped all kinds of hints that might have been about a bribe) even though he knew I wasn't going to be buying more then a couple of the things.
Now they have even priced themselves out of the range of military budgets.

Re:To find out why they are doing this ... by dhammabum · 2011-03-23 23:21 · Score: 1

No, I think this is just IBM's stupidity? narrow mindedless? I can't work them out. Ride the monopoly as hard as possible but of course this isn't quite a monopoly. Two years ago we bought a new IBM SAN from the "broker market" for just over 1/2 the "best" price from IBM. Of course IBM *still* made profit on the deal. Their POWER servers are so over priced, for the same money (broker market mind you) we can buy 3 beefy Intel servers with quite adequate performance, so they are seriously losing a lot of market. Go figure.

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I am not a robot. I am a unicorn.

so now Hotz has violated the Espionage Act? by decora · 2011-03-23 16:10 · Score: 1

by releasing the keys which are 'national defense information'?

The next step by Required+Snark · 2011-03-23 16:51 · Score: 4, Insightful

Even though the Slashdot Pundits dismiss this as useless, obviously the user community it supports thinks it is a big success. The claim is that Condor is in the to 40 supercomputers and it costs 10 times less then getting the same results using other hardware. Not too shabby.

It's likely that one of the reasons that this is so useful is the the SPE/Cell processors are good at the kind of image processing that the USAF is interested in. They are doing a lot of work in the Fourier domain, which is common for radar processing, so the Cell streaming 64 bit floating point architecture is well suited to the task.

From the article:

As impressive as the Condor is, it won’t be for long. Barnell envisions integrating smartphone processors into high-performance computing, putting the power of a Condor into a small surveillance drone the size of your fist, something weighing less than a pound and using the energy of a standard light bulb.

This translates to "We're going to use ARM processors as soon as possible".

These researchers see the value in leveraging commercial technology for cost effective high performance computing. If you want good performance per watt driven by a big commercial market the ARM is the way to go. There are GPUs that work with the ARM architecture, as well as ARM vector processing units. I would guess that they plan to use the upcoming generation of 64 bit ARM processors as soon as they are available. They might even start with current generation 32 bit dual CPU 2GHz hardware.

Just because the ARM is not as cool as CUDA doesn't make it useless. IBM has announce that it will not do a next gen PS3/Cell processor, so the USAF funding that effort by itself would be costly and have long lead times. ARM CPUs are only going to get cheaper, faster and be very power efficient. It's the obvious next step.

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Why is Snark Required?

Re:The next step by DoofusOfDeath · 2011-03-24 00:38 · Score: 1

so the Cell streaming 64 bit floating point architecture is well suited to the task.
When I was doing Cell programming for scientific computing, the Cell's 64-bit double-precision performance actually blew chunks. The Cell found in PS3's, unless they've updated it in the past few years, is first and foremost a videogame processor.
If the Airforce could start from scratch today, I wonder if they'd get better performance for their money using GPU cards rather than PS3's.
Re:The next step by Hythlodaeus · 2011-03-24 03:38 · Score: 1

The reason it was cost effective is because, like all console manufacturers, Sony subsidizes the hardware with the expectation of recouping the cost via game developer license fees.

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Due to OtherOS... by Carlo+Castillo · 2011-03-23 17:45 · Score: 1

On the contrary...

I bet I could by krazytekn0 · 2011-03-23 18:01 · Score: 1

beat it at tic tac toe.

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Re:tekken by igorsalad · 2011-03-23 19:31 · Score: 1

eddie was the best in tekken3

Grammar by mdsharpe · 2011-03-23 19:39 · Score: 1, Informative

Supercomputer Made From PS3's what?

Re:Grammar by bryansj · 2011-03-24 00:25 · Score: 1

From the PS3's ability to be linked together...

ARM+CUDA by DrYak · 2011-03-24 01:17 · Score: 1

Just because the ARM is not as cool as CUDA doesn't make it useless.

Just for notice : the Tegra platform is an ARM cpu core with an Nvidia GPU unit.
Also Imagination Technologie (maker of the PowerVR GPU often coupled to ARM CPU's like on Texas Instrument's OMAP chip) is among the companies collaborating on OpenCL standard.
Qualcom's GPU is a core previously developped by ATI/AMD.
(And AMD's Fusion technologie could be scaled down to lower power requirement in the future).

As smartphone, tablets and such are going to need more parallel processing in the future (for video processing, for example), you can bet that future CPUs are going to include OpenCL-capable parallel cores. And thus, power-conscious super computer might start using them (a trend already started in the past with Transmeta's low power chips. Used back then in the super computer with the more processing power per watt.)

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Found some more info by pavon · 2011-03-24 04:29 · Score: 1

Wikipedia says that the OtherOS had access to 6 of the 7 cell cores (SPEs), and the main processor (PPE). The cell was designed for parallel tasks, and is much better at it than a standard processor. Furthermore, the RSX uses a traditional fixed-function architecture (hardware is dedicated to vertex-shaders and pixel shaders), unlike newer GPGPUs that have a bunch of ALUs that can be used for any task. This makes it much harder to write general computation code. Also, the bandwidth to the RSX is much less than to the SPEs, which further limits how much data you can crunch with it.

I know the folding@home programmers decided that it wasn't worth the time and effort to do number crunching on the RSX (they are a native application not running in OtherOS, so they had full access to the machine), as they expected the increase in performance to be minimal.

It is possible that they either bought a dev-kit and wrote native applications (and Sony decided to sign their code), or they Sony gave them access to master keys so they can do whatever they want, but it isn't necessary.

Ah, nevermind, I found an Air Force article that quotes the guy who built the cluster that confirms that they are using stock firmware/linux:

"The server runs on a Linux operating system that isn't available on the newer firmware of current systems," said Mr. Barnell. "We have to abide by the end-user license agreement like everyone else, so we're only able to use the systems as we get them."

If a Condor PS3 breaks it can't be sent in for repairs because it comes back with system updates that are unable to run Linux. After an update, it's useless in the Condor cluster.

"I have a few spares," he said. "But as they break, we'll end up removing consoles from the cluster."

Re:Found some more info by Cwix · 2011-03-24 11:47 · Score: 1

+1 Informative

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why not use IBM QS22 cell blade by zaphirplane · 2011-03-26 01:25 · Score: 1

wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_microprocessor#PowerXCell_8i claims they are used to make some super computers.
so why use this ... unconventional approach, is it cost ?

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Air Force Supercomputer Made From PS3's

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