OK, so I'm about to say something which is neither new nor original. But 
here goes.



This...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Cray2.jpeg

...is a Cray-2 supercomputer. It's a quad-core 244 MHz system with 2GB 
RAM. Depending on which benchmark you ask, it generates about 1.9 GFLOPS 
peak performance. It takes up 16 square feet of floor space and weighs 
5500 pounds. It eats 195 kW of electricity, and it's liquid-cooled. (Not 
water though - God no! It's CFCs.) It's hard to find definitive numbers, 
but it appears to have originally been sold for something like 16 
million USD. That's roughly 32 million in 2010 USD.

On the other hand, this...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:RaspberryPi.jpg

...is a Respberry Pi. It's a circuit board that fits in your pocket, and 
costs less than a meal for two at a cheap restaurant. It's sold as a toy 
for children to play with - a cheap, disposable computer.

It's GPU alone generates 24 GFLOPS. I have no idea what the CPU puts out.

This is powered using nothing more than the 900 mA that a USB cable can 
supply. (~3.5W, apparently.) It doesn't even have a heat sink, let alone 
fans. If you put it on the ground, it takes up approximately 0.049737 
square feet, not including USB cable. And you *can* actually run useful 
computations with just that. (Although you'd need to plug in some more 
wires to set it running in the first place...)

It might be a little bit of a stretch to say that a Raspberry Pi is as 
powerful as 24 Cray-2 supercomputers. (After all, the Cray-2 has 2GB 
RAM, while the Raspberry Pi has a rather disappointing 0.5GB.) But 
seriously... THIS IS A TOY!

We are living in the future, gentlemen. The future is here, right now. 
And we're living in it.

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On 14/07/2013 12:43 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

> It takes up 16 square feet of floor space and weighs
> 5500 pounds. It eats 195 kW of electricity, and it's liquid-cooled.

In case, you were wondering, today we would call that 1.5 square meters 
of floor space, and 2.5 metric tonnes.

And 195 kW is... still 195 kW.

For giggles, 195 kW is about 260 horsepower. It's also enough 
electricity to run between 30 to 60 households. To run one computer. 30 
to 60 houses. Ouch. No wonder MIT was billing people $410/hour to borrow 
theirs...

(It appears Cray-2 was the first Cray system to run UNIX.)

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On 14/07/2013 01:23 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> For giggles, 195 kW is about 260 horsepower. It's also enough
> electricity to run between 30 to 60 households.

WA claims that this works out at 140 kg of CO2 per hour.

Which doesn't sound like a lot, but do you have any idea what the mass 
of CO2 is?? That's A LOT of hot air! (75 m^3, to be exact...)

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Orchid Win7 v1 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> The future is here, right now.

That's actually a contradictory statement, by definition.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 15/07/2013 10:19 AM, Warp wrote:
> Orchid Win7 v1<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
>> The future is here, right now.
>
> That's actually a contradictory statement, by definition.

Ironic kitty... is ironic.

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On Mon, 15 Jul 2013 18:20:41 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

> On 15/07/2013 10:19 AM, Warp wrote:
>> Orchid Win7 v1<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
>>> The future is here, right now.
>>
>> That's actually a contradictory statement, by definition.
> 
> Ironic kitty... is ironic.

But Ironic kitty is made of meat, not iron. :)

Jim

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On Mon, 15 Jul 2013 23:01:21 +0200, Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom>  
wrote:

> On Mon, 15 Jul 2013 18:20:41 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>
>> On 15/07/2013 10:19 AM, Warp wrote:
>>> Orchid Win7 v1<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
>>>> The future is here, right now.
>>>
>>> That's actually a contradictory statement, by definition.
>>
>> Ironic kitty... is ironic.
>
> But Ironic kitty is made of meat, not iron. :)
>
> Jim

But meat is a good source of iron ;)

-- 
-Nekar Xenos-

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On Tue, 16 Jul 2013 06:11:37 +0200, Nekar Xenos wrote:

> On Mon, 15 Jul 2013 23:01:21 +0200, Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom>
> wrote:
> 
>> On Mon, 15 Jul 2013 18:20:41 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>>
>>> On 15/07/2013 10:19 AM, Warp wrote:
>>>> Orchid Win7 v1<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
>>>>> The future is here, right now.
>>>>
>>>> That's actually a contradictory statement, by definition.
>>>
>>> Ironic kitty... is ironic.
>>
>> But Ironic kitty is made of meat, not iron. :)
>>
>> Jim
> 
> But meat is a good source of iron ;)

LOL, good point, I hadn't thought of that.

But Ironic Kitty does also tend to be furry, and I prefer my meat be 
served without fur.

(We sometimes jokingly refer to our three cats as "meat with fur". :) )

Jim

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On Tue, 16 Jul 2013 22:06:45 +0200, Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom>  
wrote:

> On Tue, 16 Jul 2013 06:11:37 +0200, Nekar Xenos wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 15 Jul 2013 23:01:21 +0200, Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, 15 Jul 2013 18:20:41 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 15/07/2013 10:19 AM, Warp wrote:
>>>>> Orchid Win7 v1<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
>>>>>> The future is here, right now.
>>>>>
>>>>> That's actually a contradictory statement, by definition.
>>>>
>>>> Ironic kitty... is ironic.
>>>
>>> But Ironic kitty is made of meat, not iron. :)
>>>
>>> Jim
>>
>> But meat is a good source of iron ;)
>
> LOL, good point, I hadn't thought of that.
>
> But Ironic Kitty does also tend to be furry, and I prefer my meat be
> served without fur.
>
> (We sometimes jokingly refer to our three cats as "meat with fur". :) )
>
> Jim
LOL

And then there's Ionic Kitty ...

-- 
-Nekar Xenos-

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On Wed, 17 Jul 2013 06:03:55 +0200, Nekar Xenos wrote:

> And then there's Ionic Kitty ...

A 'free' kitty? ;)

Jim

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