2.4 Gigabit Network Demoed

coaxial writes: "At SuperComputing '99, the fastest network in the world, 2.4 gigabits, was built between the University of Washington and Microsoft's Redmond campus thanks to the DARPA-sponsored National Transparent Optical Network (NTON), the university's Pacific/Northwest Gigapop, and Nortel. You can read all about it from the NCSA now apart of The Alliance . " Cool, MP3's and DECSS'd DVD movies at the speed of the light.

Comments

The posting comment didn't help

[at-b]

Hey
This isn't meant to be offensive to the Slashdot crew or Nathan in particular, and I understand that the comment added to the news posting was most likelt humorous in nature. But: Do you guys think that

> Cool, MP3's and DECSS'd DVD movies at the speed of the light.

is a good impression to give to non-hacker types reading Slashdot? (hacking, not cracking) Of course, lots of nerdy techies like myself :) read Slashdot, and we'll grin at the deCSS and MP3 comments, since we know stuff like that happens, because people simply exploit it. I've never deCSSed a DVD, not do I intend to ever copy one off the net.
But many of the industry people who do read Slashdot and try to form an opinion of Open Source (Unreal and Q3 developers, for instance, both of whom have posted here previously), will form the opinion that we're just a bunch of immature geeks who'll steal their software, if necessary.
Again, I know the comment was probably meant to be funny - but guys, we aren't alone here anymore. 'Suits' and industry people read Slashdot, and their opinion counts if we want to bring proper DVD support to Linux, for instance. Or if we want full Linux support for games, etc.

We're in a phase right now where everything that happens to Linux really, really matters. Let's not throw it away by acting childishly, and fitting into the 'zealot geek' stereotype many would like to categorise us as.
Sorry, Nathan - this really isn't a flame against you.

Alex


"Your telnet is talking to itself. Welcome to the wacky world of TCP/IP."

Re:I risk my karma for this

[Booker]

You argue that copyright law has nothing to do with the creation of art, and point out Linux as an example... but even the GPL'd code in Linux is copyrighted. I don't think the problem is with copyright in and of itself. It has more to do with how the copyright holder uses that copyright. Yes, the RIAA and MPAA use their copyrights to make vast sums of money and limit access to the material, but it doesn't have to be that way.

All the people attacking the concept of copyright would do well to back up and make sure they've got the right target in their sights.
----

They used W2K

[Ice Station Zebra]

With 24 100MBs cards and 128 processors serving up 20,000,000 static pages a second to a little old lady who was having problems getting the mouse to work.

We already have the fastest (for now)

[blanalex]

Here in Canada we already have the fastest real-life internet-like network, with 80gbps of bandwidth (and still getting faster), thousands of kilometers of fiber, 9 access points, AND MSFT didn't put a penny in it!

This demoed network is like a 14.4 access to internet compared to CA*Net3.

Misinformation...

[Raleel]

SLight bit of misinformation here...The fastest net in the world was at supercomputing, but it was not the oc-48 between MS and SC99. It was the LAN, which was multiple OC-192's, each wavelength multiplexed with 10 wavelengths. They could have gone higher, but as one of my coworkers stated, "they didn't need to and were feeling lazy". It was fricking insane (I was there). BTW, this wasn't some theoretical net, this was actually implemented complete with routers. As my coworker, who helped implement it said, "It's the hottest network on earth."

In addition, many other things that were at SC99 will be of interest to the Slashdotters. One was the incredible number of Beowulfs. The real world computing partnership had a ~30 node one, SGI had a 32 node one, VALinux had a 16 node one, Argonne, LBNL, and LNL all had VaLinux clusters as well. Dell had parts of one to go to PNL. Lots of clusters. There was a Cray T3, many Onyx 2's and several other large systems.

One of the neatest things I saw was a Sun e450 w/ 2 gigs of ram and 4 processors. It powers 26 Sunrays with netscape, StarOffice and Smart cards. It ran extrememly fast, as it took all 26 going hog wild before I noticed a slowdown.

Another neat thing was this thing that all I can remember is the software, called DomeGL. Basically, they take a wide angle lens that can project without focal loss across a 180 degree hemisphere, project it inside a hemispherical dome in a darkened room and it gives a strong illusion of 3d, even without shutter glasses.

Lets see...lots of stuff for the big computers (ASCI Red, Blue Pacific, etc), a robot name sprocket controlled rather directly that spoke ina rather saucy voice, IBM's new display that has 200 pixels per inch and displays at (cannot remmeber exact, but this is close) 2640x2048, which, I was told, is just inside the visual accuity range of a 20/20 vision adult, demos of everyones stuff, compaq's alpha clusters with their optimized gcc, Alta's clusters, and all sorts of other stuff. If you ever get a chance to help set up, I highly recommend it. I got the opportunity because my employer is an exhibitor, but they do have volunteers

As for some of the nontechnical stuff, IBM threw a party in the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. Very nice, and lots of fun for geeks. On Wednesday night, VALinux threw a party at the Lucky Labrador, a brew pub. Good grub and free beer. SGI and SUn also had parties but they were the same night as IBM and I didn't go. I also did not get to go to any of the technical program, but I hear it was very good .

I was gonna write up an official report and send it in, but someone beat me to it ;)