[Info-vax] OT: Intel dusts off old supercomputing technology

[Michael Moroney]

Michael Kraemer <M.Kraemer at gsi.de> writes:

>Michael Moroney schrieb:

>> I find it puzzling that folding at home has client code for PC graphic
>> cards (not just the PCs themselves, the graphics card CPUs) as well
>> as playstations, but not for what is still a general purpose OS like VMS?

>Count the sheer number of PC GPUs in use
>vs the number of VMS systems still in use for "general purposes".

It wasn't a question about numbers (I'm fully aware about the number of PC
GPUs vs. VMS systems), it was a question on how easy it must be to
implement a client on VMS vs. GPUs, although the motivation to tap that
admittedly large supply of CPU horsepower would be rather high.  A PC
graphics card doesn't exactly come with a run time library suitable to run
number crunchers, and I'm sure loading an actual program onto, and getting
results from, a graphics card requires some Windoze hackery.  Meanwhile,
an OS that was originally designed as a number cruncher in part doesn't
have a client.  Seti at home was dropped since the newer BOINC code wasn't
easily ported.