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<p>I remember in 1999/2000 I did a simple BLAST benchmark on my SGI
Pentium workstation running linux, and one on my R10k box.
Similar clock speeds. Pentium was 2x faster in Int heavy calcs.
Did similar things with FP, and discussed the results with my team
and engineering. <br>
</p>
<p>None of them were happy. <br>
</p>
<p>I left SGI in 2001, after a discussion with the SVP of
engineering, Warren Pratt, who insisted that the future was not
linux clusters, but large beefy many cpu shared memory servers. I
put my money/future where my mouth was.</p>
<p>Today, I run on rackmount 1 and 2U boxes containing 80-128 CPU
(cores), and 2TB physical ram.</p>
<p>So yeah. He was right.</p>
<p>But they run linux, and are x86_64 arch.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 3/23/23 15:08, Prentice Bisbal via
Beowulf wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:b1c305a5-e445-6713-19d4-d54bf3e66a42@pppl.gov">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<p>Yeah, that whole situation was frustrating. From 2004 -2007, I
was working for a pharmaceutical startup supporting their
Computer-Aided Drug Discovery (CADD) team. Had I been hired
before the director of CADD, it would have been a 100% Linux
shop. Instead, as soon as he was hired he started insisting, and
circulated a memo, stating that Linux was still a toy for
hobbyists and "not ready for primetime" (he used that exact
quote). So we spent tens of thousands of dollars on two Octanes
and the 8-way Origin 350. I got a Linux workstation as a
proof-of-concept, and that HP Workstation running Linux that
cost only a few thousand dollars ran circles around those SGI
boxes, and when cost was factored in FLOPS/$ was like 10x better
than the SGI hardware at that point. And all of that hardware
was bought used ("remarketed") from SGI, so new hardware would
have compared significantly worse in terms of value. <br>
</p>
<p>Also, it turned out the director of CADD owned a nontrivial
amount of SGI stocks, so not only was an he over-the-hill
curmudgeon afraid of new technology, there was also a pretty
clear conflict of interest for him to be pushing SGI, even
though I'm sure our small purchase did nothing to improve SGI
stock value. <br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 3/23/23 2:58 PM, Joe Landman
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:bc99ae44-5ce7-28b7-c9fb-b686cf4d22df@gmail.com">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;
charset=UTF-8">
<p>They had laid off all the good people doing workstations by
then, I think they outsourced design/production to ODMs by
that time. MIP processors were long in the tooth in 1999,
never mind 2007.</p>
<p>Having been at SGI from 1995-2001, I can tell you the reason
MIPS sucked wind at that point, was the good ship Itanic sunk
Alien and Beast processors. Those design teams left, and we
didn't have much for post R10k, other than respins and shrinks
of R10k. Which were renamed R12k, R14k ...</p>
<p>Beast would have been relevant (near EOL though) in 2007. <br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 3/23/23 14:53, Prentice Bisbal
via Beowulf wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:4f14ef2e-afdf-0e52-e1c5-0ad47b7afcc8@pppl.gov">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;
charset=UTF-8">
<p>Between 2003 and 2007, I worked with a lot of O2s, Octanes,
an 8-way Origin 350, and even a Tezro. I don't miss those
days. <br>
</p>
<p>I always felt like the design of their workstations was
done by the same people who design Playskool toys rather
than professional hardware. <br>
</p>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">Prentice Bisbal
Senior HPC Engineer
Computational Sciences Department
Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
Princeton, NJ
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://cs.pppl.gov" moz-do-not-send="true">https://cs.pppl.gov</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.pppl.gov" moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.pppl.gov</a></pre>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 3/23/23 1:08 PM, Ryan
Novosielski via Beowulf wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:87C8A045-0386-45E1-AD8A-4ACB952BE1FD@rutgers.edu">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;
charset=UTF-8">
Seriously. I have an Indy and an Octane2 laying around.
That’s not even an SGI. :-P
<div><br>
<div>
<div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color:
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overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space;
line-break: after-white-space;"> --<br>
#BlackLivesMatter</div>
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing:
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overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space;
line-break: after-white-space;"> ____<br>
|| \\UTGERS, <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> |---------------------------*O*---------------------------<br>
||_// the State<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> |
Ryan Novosielski - <a
class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated
moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="mailto:novosirj@rutgers.edu"
moz-do-not-send="true">novosirj@rutgers.edu</a><br>
|| \\ University | Sr. Technologist - 973/972.0922
(2x0922) ~*~ RBHS Campus<br>
|| \\ of NJ<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> |
Office of Advanced Research Computing - MSB
A555B, Newark<br>
`'</div>
</div>
</div>
<div><br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>On Mar 23, 2023, at 13:07, Michael DiDomenico <a
class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:mdidomenico4@gmail.com"
moz-do-not-send="true"><mdidomenico4@gmail.com></a>
wrote:</div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
<div>
<div>ack, irix flashbacks... :) fortunately, this
machine isn't quite that<br>
old, circa 2013<br>
<br>
On Thu, Mar 23, 2023 at 1:02 PM Darren Wise via
Beowulf<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:beowulf@beowulf.org"
moz-do-not-send="true"><beowulf@beowulf.org></a>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite"><br>
Hello,<br>
<br>
I don't personally have such myself but anything
SGI even with today's<br>
exotics Ians about the most knowledgable I know
of globally and<br>
seriously dying out within this sector, I hazard
a guess your SM board<br>
would be considered quite new compared to other
systems.<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/sgidepot/"
moz-do-not-send="true">http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/sgidepot/</a><br>
<br>
<br>
Kind Regards,<br>
Darren Wise<br>
Research Engineer, Mechatronics<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://wisecorp.co.uk"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://wisecorp.co.uk</a>,
.us & .ru<br>
<br>
On 23/03/2023 16:51, Michael DiDomenico wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite">does anyone happen to
have an old sgi / supermicro bios for an<br>
X9DRG-QF+ motherboard squirreled away
somewhere? sgi is long gone,<br>
hpe might have something still but who knows
where. i reached out to<br>
supermicro, but i suspect they'll say no.<br>
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Joe Landman
e: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated moz-txt-link-freetext" href="mailto:joe.landman@gmail.com" moz-do-not-send="true">joe.landman@gmail.com</a>
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g: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://github.com/joelandman" moz-do-not-send="true">https://github.com/joelandman</a>
l: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/joelandman" moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.linkedin.com/in/joelandman</a></pre>
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e: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:joe.landman@gmail.com">joe.landman@gmail.com</a>
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