Miscellaneous Operating Systems/Hardware

First is this . A "major server manufacturer" is due to announce a 512-core server on 22 June based on 8 64-core Tilera MIPS processors, which is pretty cool. I'm interested to see their definition of "major" - will this be one of the big players, or someone who's name occasionally gets mentioned in the press? Either way, it's very cool to see new RISC servers announced.

The other interesting article is SGI-related: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/sgi-announces-hybrid-computing-platform-to-deliver-a-petaflop-in-a-single-cabinet-2010-06-01?reflink=MW_news_stmp . SGI is apparently back in the MIPS business, and planning to use Tilera processors as accelerators in next-generation Altix systems.

"SGI shows its R&D strength again," said Steve Conway, IDC research vice president for high performance computing. "Following closely on the heels of the Altix UV series, SGI has introduced a highly dense, scalable technology designed for strong sustained performance on very demanding HPC applications."

Yeah. That's why they went bankrupt twice, pissed away god knows how many billions then handed over all their goodies for pocket change a year ago. Definitely the leaders in this field ... you'd be better off listening to my grandma than this Conway dork.

This and the RASC stuff was definitely interesting from a technical standpoint - it seems that this incarnation might be an answer similar to IBM's Cell-based stuff, but it does remain to be seen if it works out in the marketplace.

Really the technical hasn't been a problem for SGI, it's more of the "what will sell, and at what price" that has nailed them.