A fun topic for April, one that is not an April fool’s joke, is that you can purchase a commodity 200+ Gflop (single-precision) Linux supercomputer for around $600 from your favorite electronic vendor. Yes, it’s true. Just walk in and ask for a Sony Playstation 3 (PS3), take it home and install Linux on it. IBM has provided an excellent tutorial for installing Linux and building applications at http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/power/library/pa-linuxps3-1. If you want to raise some eyebrows at work, then submit a purchase request for a Sony PS3 game console and watch the reactions as your paperwork wends its way through the procurement process.
Revised: October 10, 2011 |
Published: April 15, 2007
Citation
Farber R. 2007.Will Your Next Supercomputer Come from Costco?.Scientific Computing 24, no. 5:13.PNNL-SA-54072.