From: "M. Edward (Ed) Borasky" <znmeb@...>
Date: 2007-09-13T13:05:48+09:00
Subject: Re: [OT] Re: What Linux distribution to choose for learning Ruby and Ruby on Rails

Reid Thompson wrote:
> Reid Thompson wrote:
>> M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
>>
>>> Not lucky -- your needs are more commonplace than mine. I use
>>> highly-optimized chip-level numerical and symbolic libraries and
>>> applications, play around with all the exotic languages, and just in
>>> general try to break stuff that most folks can't even spell. ;)
>>>
>>> Back in 1990 they told me I'd have a supercomputer on my desktop and I
>>> scoffed. Well, the biggest thing you could get back then was around 10
>>> GFlops, and that's just about what I get out of my dual-core Athlon64
>>> right now. But the biggest thing you can get now is about a petaflop.
>>> And so it goes ...
>>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
>>> Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (GNU/Linux)
>>> Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>>>
>>> iD8DBQFG5iuV8fKMegVjSM8RApQ3AKDJamNBJmBr74o7zxvH0EGlP8lYoACgtnAX
>>> V5SWzgRZoj7anHL3PBG3kNY=
>>> =ckv0
>>> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>> heh,
>> you should check out
>>
>> http://www.trekunited.com/community/index.php?showtopic=14814
>>
>> 26.25 gigaflops for $2500
> the 'official'?? writeup ( small enough to fit on your desk ;) )
> 
> http://www.clustermonkey.net//content/view/211/1/
> 
> 
That's only 2.5 times what I have (in 32-bit arithmetic, anyhow, which
is what the GF10 was). I paid about $700US for my system including
having their tech do the assembly. What's sad is that it doesn't look
like there are going to be consumer-grade (Athlon) AMD Quad Cores for
quite a while -- they seem to be fighting a losing battle with Intel in
server land and abandoning the gamers.

And it looks like Intel will have a QC laptop chip next year, while
there may *never* be a quad-core Turion. That 64-processor RISC/VLIW
chip is looking pretty good right about now.
http://www.tilera.com/products/processors.php

It runs Linux ... it has a C compiler ... it can't be a huge stretch to
port Ruby, Erlang or Gambit Scheme/Termite to it. I should check the
floating point out, though -- it may only be an integer architecture,
since it's mostly intended for embedded networking applications.