back to article Geeks fight the smelter with embedded processor-based box

In 2002, a couple of hardware geeks thrust a crazy, fresh idea on the computing community. Chris Hipp, a co-founder of blade maker RLX, and Wu-chun Feng, then a researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory, concocted a very powerful cluster with servers based on laptop chips from Transmeta. The cluster failed to outperform …

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  1. De Zeurkous
    Flame

    Oh yeah sure...

    #ifdef SARCASM

    ...dealing with x86 and IBM PC brain-damage any longer is going to 'help' the climate 'recover' (that is, I gather that from the original article). And, 'utility computing' is really such a good idea; it's not like we're moving all data centers to semi-centralized locations. Also, we won't be depending on the integrity of the computing 'utilities', and even if we would, they would be in the hands of trustworthy companies like IBM and the reborn Sun Microsystems, won't it? Besides, developing 'data nodes' to deploy at the exact places they are needed is just science fiction; in the real world, it's just a hassle having to change our busi^W^W^Wservice them in such diverse environments, isn't it?

    #endif /* SARCASM */

    Isn't it?

  2. Ole Juul
    Coat

    QRP?

    I only hope they grasp the rest of the concept and text files come back into fashion.

  3. amanfromMars Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    QRP? ....... to enjoy ITs Power when correctly Targetted, Ole Juul? How very Wise.

    "I only hope they grasp the rest of the concept and text files come back into fashion."

    Presumably to make IT simple for Global Transcription allowing for AIMutual Intelligence Service to QuITe Sublimely/Subliminally/Immaculately Communicate and Trade Semantically? Love Trades without the Bugs with a Universal Steganography Permitting Memoranda of Higher Understanding for InterNetional Trade at the Elevated Quantum Level, Ole Juul?

    At Quantum Communications Levels, does Semantic MetaDataAnalysis allow for Virtual TelePortation of Grander Ideas, which would be Passions. These are then easily Virtually Delivered/Realised by Enabled and Enabling Target Partners/SMART Cookies. Sublime Ideas Shared and Realised Together/Quantum Activated and Enabled, Simply because of their Worth being Selflessly Shared Unconditionally and so Recognised, is also merely just an Initiating Catalyst/a Trigger for Any Number of Further Passions Shared 42 BRealised Virtually through their Selfless Communication in Plain Text for Transcrption even though that Plain Text be Communicating Simply, CompleXXXX Concepts at the Quantum Communications "Hello Wwworld" Levels.

  4. Anton Ivanov

    Well, than make the vendors ship em damn it

    I have been building all my servers and all my test gear with low power kit for 6+ years now using Via C3. This unfortunately means that I have to build all of them myself. No vendor kit available.

    Until the Dells, HPs and IBMs of this world start shipping kit based on real low power chips (both mainline and blades) green computing remains a pipe dream or a toy for the ones that can afford building their own systems.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    @amanfromMars

    Don't you ever get tired of being the village idiot?

  6. Ole Juul

    @ Anonymous Coward

    "Don't you ever get tired of being the village idiot?"

    Maby it's a generational problem. :)

    Hey! Are you "the" Anonymous Coward? I think we went to school together.

  7. Captain DaFt
    Boffin

    Signal Cancelling Technology

    I'm surprised that so many people have trouble understanding amanfromMars.

    It's simply IT related word association interspersed into an otherwise straight-forward message.

    For a simple guide to understanding what he's on about, I refer you to Monty Python's Word Association Sketch by John Cleese, complete with translation guide: http://www.oslc.com/templates/cusoslc/details.asp?id=29361&PID=304743

  8. Nick Ryan Silver badge
    Stop

    And now for something complete different...

    And now for something complete different... an operating system and API / set of programming libraries that doesn't take thousands of times more CPU cycles than necessary to do something that should be simple.

    Software Optimisation... the purchase of faster hardware.

  9. Peter Gathercole Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    @Ole Juul

    Ahhh, but text files ain't what they used to be. Gone are the days of CP437, 850 or ISO8859. We are now in the realm of Unicode and UTF.

    Still, plain text (especially western languages mostly occupying 8 bits per character) in plain Unicode or UTF-8 will still be much more efficient than wrapping the stuff up in HTML or XML. I've not used Asian languages, so I can't compare these.

    I still prefer my email like this. Makes the words more important if the formatting is ripped out.

  10. druck Silver badge

    Ditch x86

    Just think of the power you'd save if you ditched the horrendous legacy x86 instruction set and the logic in every chip to turn it in to something that can actually be executed by a modern processor core.

    Of course that would mean ditching a certain obscenely bloated and inefficient OS which is tied to x86, and using something you can recompile with gcc to any number of more energy efficient architectures.

    There might be something in this green computing after all.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Wow. Berkeley labs uses 20 MW?

    That's a whole lot of power... 6% of Namibia's power generation capability!

  12. Kenneth Chan
    Happy

    the processor as transistors

    "the processor almost becomes a modern day version of what the transistor was 30 to 40 years ago"

    I like that notion.... What will glue all those processor together? I feel a research grant coming... Quick Proposal!$

    Ken

  13. De Zeurkous
    Flame

    RE: the processor as transistors

    We're not there yet, although we could have been. INMOS Transputer. 'nuff said.

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