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Roadrunner supercomputer, courtesy LANL
The folks at HPC Wire, trade press for the supercomputer world, did a nice job of explaining some of the subtle details associated with Los Alamos National Laboratory’s decision to shut down Roadrunner, once the fastest computer in the world:
The system served its purpose chewing a bevy of mostly classified and some key civilian code. However, in the end, the combination of a finite contract, an extinct chip, the cost of crumpling up code to fit into IBM’s Cell, and the promise of swifter, more efficient technologies were main factors in the planned clipped lifecycle of the petaflop pioneer.
Update: A friend suggests an appropriate musical accompaniment, from the legendary Bo Diddley.
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