New Supercomputer By Star Bridge 58
Ronin Developer writes with word of this "interesting article on CNN about a new desktop-size super computer that reconfigures itself on the fly. The company name is 'Star Bridge.' Ring any bells? If I remember correctly, wasn't there something on /. about this a year ago?" Indeedy do -- Star Bridge seems to go straight from wacky-but-cool promises to Where are they now? (and back) with finesse. It's the the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie plot of hardware companies -- simultaneously head-scratchingly implausible, mildly compelling, and numbingly persistent.
New application for Star Bridge (Score:1)
Remember that 3D display story? (Score:1)
Remember that story [slashdot.org] on the 27th about actuality systems building a 3D display? Well guess who makes the processors... Yup. Xilinx. The same people who are behind the FPGAs in the Star Bridge system unit... So we have 2 products that potentially could revolutionize the computing industry as we know it and they are both tied back to the same company. Either a new Intel is born or well more vapor coming from the steam room that is the "internet era economy"
What's that? You want one? Ha Ha Ha Ha! You silly peon of a civilian hacker! Did you really think that you could ride the wave of human intellegence into the future?? Well we here at the NSA, CIA, and FBI disagree. No one is ever going to need the power these machines provide (besides us of course)... No from now on computers suitable for civilians are to be restricted to 64-bit CPUs at most. If we can't install a backdoor into your encryptions then we'll just keep the most powerful processors that can brute-force them.
Hey, man! I invented this in the '70's! (Score:1)
I extensively discussed the idea of soft micro/nanoinstructions and purely combinatorial context reconfigurable cpu's with my buddies at a bazillion cocktail (there was weed there, too. of course.) parties in the mid 70's. We had a lot of it specced out, too, including hypermultiplexed optical bussing, tagged packet payloads, the whole nine yards.
If we weren't all so busy getting wasted at the time, we might have actually built something!
Does a bunch of tekkie wastoids babbling in the kitchen count as prior art?
Hmmm...
Starbridge = NASA ?! (Score:1)
The stuff that appeared 4 days ago was about NASA. There was no mention of Starbridge or anything.
But both articles came up with the same idea - FPGA based computer sans CPU, achieving the speed of Two Thousand 800MHZ Pentium machine, in one small boxen.
I did not downloaded NASA's brain-damaged
Anyone who knows please comment.
Thank you.
Re:"We believe!" (Score:2)
That is kind of odd. Didn't their marketeers ever take a composition course? You're supposed to state your position unequivocably without resorting to "I think that..." or "We believe that..." or "In my opinion..."
Maybe it's different when you're talking about an actual product rather than academic theories, but I've never seen other vendors use such wishy-washy language.
Re:Starbridge = NASA ?! (Score:1)
Bullshit. Starbridge was clearly mentioned last time. And FWIW, I believe they have a regular computer (with CPU, of course) acting as a FEP. So the FPGA system is like a co-processor board.
The Real Issue (Score:5)
Some reality is in order here.
FPGA computing is real and it has been shown to work for some problems. Take a look at TimeLogic [timelogic.com]. These guys have implemented search algorithms used in the human genome project on FPGAs.
Now let's look the difference between "works" and "price to performance". In the case of TimeLogic they have produced a "stand-alone appliance that end-users do not program (i.e. users do not program the FPGAs.) I beleive the reasons for this is that this programming abstraction (remember this) is not easy to master (i.e. it is not a mainstream programming language.) Nor is the "edit, complie, run cycle" easily reporduced on a desk top. (This time is perhaps the single most limiting factor in software production). So FPGA computing works, but is expensive to implement and program. It does not support cost effective general programing practices that are used today.(i.e. unless you are building specific purpose machine and can justify the software development costs based on a real market, the cost of programming for every day production environments is too expensive)
Which brings me to the main point. The issue is SOFTWARE. It is easy to build a Beowulf with 1000 processors and call it a supercomputer. It is hard (expensive) to write good software for this system. It is easy to string together a bunch of FPGAs and call it a supercomputer. It is hard (expensive) to write software for these things and it is harder (expensive squared) to write parallel software for these things.
In general, there is a huge (I mean really huge) investment in the supercomputer world in programming abstratcions that use FORTRAN (and to some extent C) Side Note:Before all you "FORTRAN is dead language boneheads" start hitting the reply button, remember that there are more than a few 100,000+ line FORTRAN programs that determine everything from airplane wings, to weather, to new drugs, that are not going to go away because you think XML is great way to go. Indeed, the cost of reprogramming these applications is almost an economic impossibility!
So where were we, ah yes, the software thing. My point is that until FPGA systems can take standard supercomputing FORTRAN or C applications and run them "out of the box" and thereby allow the tens of thousands of people who understand this type of programming to use FPGAs easily, they will remain application specific computers (albeit fast) and not realy a mainstream programmable computing devices. This is not to say in the future the FPGA computing will not dominiate (maybe it will), but there is a lot of work to be done on the software side before this will happen.
BTW: I sent the Starbridge guys some simple FORTRAN benchmarks a while ago. I did not receive a response.
Finally, remember this:
The general always eats the specific.
Any one remember a company called Symbolics?
FPGA and HDL have been around but on fly is cool (Score:2)
VHDL is nice but I always thought that the machine could do a better job if you described the problem better and arent so abstract
this is intresting but you have to understand that this is like software agents to hardware engineers
how many REAL applications of software agents are there ? this is all mangled up in the EXPERT systems design methodolgy and it become a real quagmire to sort out
if Star Bridge Systems keeps focus then they will be alright
all hell will break lose if they dream up fancy problems to solve, KISS is the order of the day
hope they get somewhere
oh and slashdot did run this story but it is nice that it is a story in its own right
regards
john jones
Re:FPGA's (Score:2)
Go to starbridge's site [starbridgesystems.com] and poke around a bit. The "HAL 300" was enough to make me spew coffee on my monitor I was laughing so hard.
The "faster than the IBM Pacific Blue (when simulating a 4-bit adder)" claims put the nail in their coffin for me. These guys are hucksters of the worst kind.
Re:FPGA's (Score:2)
I think I remember reading about something like that - a guy removed "islands" from the circuit and it stopped working, and when he put them back in it worked. Crazy
Genetic algorithms (in software) tend to be like that. Evolution doesn't value parsimony or maintainability; it only cares about what works. Turns out genetically evolved software desperately needs "junk DNA" (as safe places to recombine bits from two parent algorithms).
On the other hand, much of the same thing seems to be true for the large C++ application I'm working on.-(
Re:Slashdot scooped CNN, and doesn't even know it! (Score:2)
Dave
Wasn't this posted Wednesday? (Score:1)
I know that sometimes articles fade in and out of our collective consciousness but it was just posted on Wednesday and nothing new has happened since.
Although I guess anything would be better than talking about how the Leafs managed to lose to the Habs tonight. Disgraceful that was.
Ring, Ring! (Score:4)
Excerpting from this NASA press release [nasa.gov] that Slashdot linked to Friday:
And from this article [nasa.gov] that Slashdot linked to in the same writeup: I'm not trying to be a troll or start a flame war; I just think it's absurd that Slashdot's editors not only don't participate in posting comments (and claim they read them), but that they don't even their own articles!Strange how Slashdot was bought out, and now that our beloved editors are paid hefty sums with full editorial control, they still can't find the time to read their own site. This site was definately better back when it was Rob & Jeff posting stuff that interested them (and that they therefore actually read). It's still an amazing site, just not as amazing =(
Re:2001 indeed (Score:1)
sick and twisted? I think it's funny. although I actually checked a couple times to make sure this wasn't posted on April 1, just in case
sean
2001 indeed (Score:4)
they just never learn.
sean
This is a double. . . (Score:1)
FYI: This is the same thing as the posting about the FPGA [slashdot.org] computer that NASA just got. This thing is pretty durn cool, it works off of an iconic programming language, sort of like labview. Superfast, a few thousand times faster than a P3-800, well you can read the articles. I can't wait to play with it, since we just got one here at NASA . . . :)
:) http://pjbutler.dhs.org/me
Patrik
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Just your ordinary BOFH
Re:This is a double. . . (Score:1)
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Just your ordinary BOFH
Is this sort of like CAD? (Score:1)
Arrrgghhhh.... wrong hardware!!! (Score:2)
--Mike--
Re:FPGA's (Score:2)
From what I recall about parallel computing, the structure and using it are the hard part of parallel computing. So ,the "Viva" library is just as important as the hardware itself.
However, from the look of it, the library just makes parallel processing easy - it doesn't transform serial code into parallel algorithms. This makes porting pretty difficult.
From their web site:
This seems like the opposite of abstraction to me. Of course, I could be wrong
The main question is, when are these things going to be available? Seems like we've been reading about them for quite a while.
Re:2001 indeed (Score:2)
And guess which operating system it runs? That's right, Windows 98 [starbridgesystems.com].
Slashdot scooped CNN, and doesn't even know it! (Score:4)
"We believe!" (Score:2)
Check it out, you'll see what I mean.
almost two hours away... (Score:1)
--
This company was bogo-identified over 2 years ago (Score:1)
/. story over 2 years ago (Score:2)
At age 12 Kent built a commercial-quality, space-invaders-type computer game.
Timothy is learning from CmdrTaco (Score:1)
'Indeedy do '? I think you meant 'Indeedy so '
' midly compelling'?
And my favorite, from the previous story, has got to be; 'It will also probably strike at the heart of arguments about how regulated (and by whom) ISPs ought to by. '
Typo (Score:3)
FPGA's (Score:5)
Now on to using FPGA's in supercomputers. First of all, an FPGA is slower than a hard-wired chip. These machines pick up speed from the fact that they can use portions of the chip that otherwise would have been on standby. It's super-charged serialization. By restructuring the circuitry for each task, they can take advantage of the majority of the chip at all times. This is not an easy task, and I find it quite impressive. (On a side note, the restructuring is software-controlled.)
When I read this story, I immediately associated it with an article from several years back about Inman Harvey and Adrian Thompson. Thompson was using an FPGA to run genetic algorithms for hardware development. Essentially, make a machine design the chip. He had some very interesting results. The chip designs took advantage of the physical chip rather than just the wiring. They were incredibly efficient, but Thompson couldn't understand why they worked. (He suspected such things as electromagnetic coupling and communication through the power supply.) This is all only moderately related, but it's very interesting, regardless. The article is from June, 1998 and can be found here [208.245.156.153] if anyone is interested.
how quaint (Score:1)
ha ha (Score:2)
This is just laughable. Here's a snippet from the specs [starbridgesystems.com] of their HAL-300 box, supposedly the superest-duperest computer in the world:
I bet ASCI White wishes it had a S-VHS connection.
Deja vu anyone? (Score:1)
Re:2001 indeed (Score:1)
"The new high-performance computers, developed ... in Midvale, Utah..."
They'd better get an office in Urbana, Illinois before they get around to making the 9000 model.
About Hal ... (Score:2)
"But Dave, I don't like Hollywood.......Dave? Aren't they just asking for trouble here?
I don't know about you, but I sure as heck hope that this bit is someone's April Fool's joke that launched a little early.
really [theregister.co.uk]
Check out the Vinny the Vampire [eplugz.com] comic strip
stone soup? (Score:1)
Funny, but somehow I don't think programming... (Score:1)
consider the details exposed in this link! [mindspring.com]
3 S.E.A.S - Virtual Interaction Configuration (VIC) - VISION OF VISIONS!
Re:You can't say we didnt warn you...... (Score:1)
Re:The Real Issue (Score:1)
Celoxia [celoxica.com] also appears to be addressing the SOFTWARE issue with links to C.
Computer Savvy /.ers like yourself may wish to explore
these many links [nasa.gov]
for more detailed info than the NASA Press Release (geared for the general public) allows.
You can't say we didnt warn you...... (Score:1)
"But Dave, I don't like Hollywood.......Dave?
Aren't they just asking for trouble here?
doesn't transmeta do something similiar? (Score:1)
Perhaps someone reading this could explain the differences between the tow different processors.
Re:2001 indeed (Score:1)
Actually, I think that the name might just be a joke, you have to understand that most brilliant minds have a sick and twisted sense of humor. They are not announcing AI or anything, just extremely fast processing. Now, if they give it an OS that has self preservation built into it and place it in control of a spaceship, then we are in trouble.
From what I understand... (Score:4)
Basicly, a FPGA can take up the properties of any chip that can be defined by VHDL or other such languages, with some restrictions, of course. So, theoretically, you use every last square inch of silicon for the problem at hand, minus whatever is there to make it reconfigurable.
So that's nice, because if you are doing floating point problems, you don't really need the integer unit. Things like that.
However, I suspect that the thing will, at least in the short term, be a pain in the arse to program efficently (Given that it's a completely different paradigm) and will probably be for specialized applications that suck on an ordinary computer.
And it isn't something that just one company thought up. It's been in the cookers in the academic part of the world for 5-6 years at least.
I mean, the best part about it is that all of your parts are off-the-shelf and cheap...
Re:2001 indeed (Score:1)
Re:2001 indeed (Score:1)
Links to more articles re:FPGA's (Score:1)
Re: Flamer (Score:1)
this is one sick mofo and its a shame he can't go with a user name...since he's so afraid..he has to hide behind his imaginary
Tell us about the Pole, I DARE YOU
Re: Your point being (Score:1)
Alan Cox on a Chip! (Score:1)
Forgot about that? It was a really premature April Fool's slashdot article. try alancoxonachip.com
I make wild guesses for my own amusement, ignore randomly.
Re:Deja vu anyone? (Score:1)
It's just looking worse and worse for this sad machine.
Re:Timothy is learning from CmdrTaco (Score:1)
Interesting you mention this. After reading this I went back to the main page and saw the error. Then I refreshed the main page (about 10-15 minutes had elapsed), and the "by" had been corrected to "be". Seems Timothy either read your comment or corrected his error on his own.
Back to the subject on hand, I found it intriguing to read the old /. article [slashdot.org] posted 2 years ago and see how many people disregarded this as a total sham. While I am still a tiny bit skeptical (prefering to experience the performance first hand to truly understand it), it would appear the product is viable enough if NASA and other supercomputing centers are using this. It will be a good follow up to see in the next few months the actual 'real-world' computing performance this has imparted to NASA's research.
- A non-productive mind is with absolutely zero balance.
Re:Ring, Ring! (Score:1)
I can just imagine what he was thinking:
Stories! Plural! Boy, those darn guys that are always on me for not checking for previous Slashdot stories on the same subject will be happy now!
If the guy who submitted the story hadn't mentioned it, he probably wouldn't have even done that.
Re:Starbridge = NASA ?! (Score:1)
Via a Space Act Agreement, NASA Langley Research Center will receive a HAL (Hyper Algorithmic Logic)-15 Hypercomputer from Star Bridge Systems, Inc. of Midvale, Utah. The system is said to be faster and more versatile than any supercomputer on the market and will change the way we think about computational methods.
Re:Ho Ho Ho (Score:1)
wishful thinking (Score:2)
Re:About Hal ... (Score:1)
That's a rather silly attitude. Firstly, do you honestly think that NASA would have a press release up on their site if this was the case? Secondly, don't you think if it were a hoax, by now somebody with an interest in the high-performance computing market would have piped up? Cray, Intel, IBM?
There is a lot of hype surrounding this and it's not helping. The point is, everybody who has a clue knows that standard CPUs suck - being able to do architecture emulation on an FPGA is a big step forward. It's not about being able to produce a 4-bit adder, or replacing ASICs necessarily. Just because you don't understand it and thought that your overclocked Celeron with neon lights all over it was the fastest PC in the world, doesn't mean that other people aren't going to try and beat you with alternative technology.
Re:FPGA's (Score:1)
I think I remember reading about something like that - a guy removed "islands" from the circuit and it stopped working, and when he put them back in it worked. Crazy
--
"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
erm... (Score:1)
Potential (Score:1)