Faster and Bigger, Another Dream

I was always fascinated about big machines. What do you think when you read about a 256x Itanium-2 powered box?. And of course, it runs Linux. You can even dream a bigger one, 2048 SGI Altix 3700 Bx2 with 2048 Itanium 2 processors. Drools ...

Unfortunately, the biggest machine I've ever had access was an ancient IBM 1401, which require around 100 m² floor area, but with only 1 MIPS and 300 MB of harddisk. I wish I tried to build a Beowulf cluster when I have access to more than 5 labs, each consist of 20 PCs.

What do you want to do with those powerful systems? People in NASA used them to do simulatations of changes in ocean temperatures and sea levels which used to require 12 months run to make a 5 years worth of prediction. I for sure will test it against Priyadi's distributed.net result :D