PS3 Supercomputer Opened to University Reseachers

[Wintermoot]

until the FW update get,s installed!

 

[Asehujiko]

Why dose the US air force have a PS£ based super computer? i get the super computer part but PS3 based?

Because the PS3 id a ?500 console consisting of a ?450 cpu(that was originally meant for super computers anyway) and some parts ripped out of a PS2. And they used to be able to run linux, which most high end CPU's don't. And sony sold them at a discount for free publicity.

And the only reason this thing exists in the first place is because the USAF is incredibly slow with new technology anyway and is the only serious supercomputer left among record attempts and university publicity projects while everybody sensible has moved on to cloud computing.

 

[FogHornG36]

yes, but can it play ps2 games?!

 

[i am not god]

Ah crap, well it was only a matter of time.

Coincidentally I'm playing portal 2 at this moment in time.

 

[Atheist.]

Hope their PS3s don't brick cause they can't replace them now that Sony took away other OS capability.

I have a feeling they don't use other OS for government research. It would be too much of a hassle, as it would still have to use 1 core to run background Playstation services. My guess would be they're using their own custom built OS and override the PS firmware somehow.

I don't know why people are so surprised that they're using PS3's as a supercomputer. This was news 4 years ago when the project started. That and the Cell Processor is a beast.

 

[Saltyk]

I feel like this entire post and the existence of this cluster is in retaliation to all the 360 fanboys. Especially considering the disproportionate number of them posting in the stories on the PSN troubles. Can your console be used to make one of the world's best Supercomputers at a fraction of the cost? No?

Sorry, I'm just trolling the trolls. Ignore me.

Anyway, this is pretty cool. I was aware of this system's existence, but I didn't realize that they had so many consoles (I thought it was only 300) or that it was still running. I didn't know if they had to update or not. Is it possible they got permission from Sony to keep using the other OS? I can't see why they wouldn't. Sony already has the money from the sell. And its not like the US government is going to pirate games or anything.

 

[Vanbael]

JEESUS! Okay, I thought that they were going to wire together like around 400 or some odd hundred PS3s, but this is going to be interesting. I only hope that they don't have neurotoxin there. But please, install a morality core just in case.

 

[Ajna]

They use PS3-based supercomputers? Man, gotta love US.

"gotta love the US" >implies that designing one of the 40 best supercomputers in the world for 1/10[sup]th[/sup] the standard cost of a supercomputer, while using 1/10[sup]th[/sup] the standard power of a supercomputer is somehow a bad thing.

I dunno, I read that as genuine.

Well, shit. Now I feel like an asshole.

EDIT: A wild CAPTCHA appeared. AJNA used APATHY. It was supereffective!

Seriously, that was the first captcha I got since my pub-club membership ran out, how can people complain about it that much? 4chan requires one for every post, I rarely see bitching there. People need to complain less.

 

[wammnebu]

How did they make them work without the homebrewing ability?

Wait..Why is this legal in the first place?

Because Sony has said already that you can do whatever you want with a PS3 provided you don't use it to connect to the PSN.

Yep, I believe the quote went something along the lines of 'If you don't like losing homebrew support, don't update it.'

have fun suing the US air force sony.... my guess is they got permission to reprogram the OS and modify the consoles, but only after they pinky-swore to not pirate anything.

in any case its good to see the Military is preparing for the Skrymm release

 

[Andy Chalk]

Why dose the US air force have a PS£ based super computer? i get the super computer part but PS3 based?

For the reasons listed in this post and the original report it links to. The PS3 brings a tremendous amount of power to bear for a relatively small price and harnessing them in this way resulted in a tremendously capable supercomputer at a small fraction of the cost of a "real" supercomputer. I suppose it's similar to distributed computing projects like SETI@home, except that all the CPUs are locally based.

I'm not sure what got this project started - a stunt, an experiment, a dare - but the net result is absolutely no joke.

 

[umerwaqas]

yes are opened for researchers
Used internally to analyze spy plane imagery and sift through mountains of text, the Condor Supercomputer has been used exclusively by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL)natural adabas migration [http://www.mosttechnologies.com/solutions/natural-adabas] is solid solution for mainframes.

Now, the lab has opened up the supercomputer to universities to conduct research on predictive modeling, computational intelligence, parallel data searches and computational linguistics.