Rise of the Machines: Self-Wiring Supercomputers

[Tuckerfan]

We just keep pushing our luck, don’t we?

An experimental supercomputer made from hardware that can reconfigure itself to tackle different software problems is being built by researchers in Scotland.

The system under construction at the Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre - part of Edinburgh University, UK - will use Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) chips instead of conventional microprocessors.

FPGAs can be reconfigured using software to mimic computer processing equipment that is physically designed to take on specialised tasks. In contrast, conventional microprocessors are designed to act as fixed, general purpose processing devices. Each FPGA chip consists of a block of programmable logic gates that can be electronically organised into different types of circuit.

The FPGA supercomputer will be more powerful and efficient than a conventional system of similar physical size. If it can be made easy enough to program, the researchers behind the machine say it could usher in a new generation of compact and energy-saving supercomputers over the coming decade.

[Rhubarb]

If these machines really gain intelligence, they will just rewire themselves to receive free cyber-porn and refuse to get a real job.

[Digital_Stimulus]

I think that if you look into these things, you’ll find that there’s less there than you might assume. For instance, saying FPGAs “reconfigure themselves” is really misleading. From the article:

FPGA hardware is more difficult to program, because a programmer must understand how to tweak the underlying hardware to get the most out of it.

I believe a better description would be “an FPGA is a type of microprocessor that can be reconfigured”.

[Shalmanese]

FPGA’s are old technology. Problem is, they’re slow and expensive. They’re used a lot in elec eng to simulate real processors to work out the bugs in the design. There was some talk a few years ago of putting them in mobile phones to act as re-configurable DSP’s but I haven’t heard much more about that. About every 2 years or so, some university announces it’s intention to build a high performance FPGA. To my knowledge, nothing has ever come out of it.

[Tuckerfan]

@Digital Stimulus

I think that if you look into these things, you’ll find that there’s less there than you might assume. For instance, saying FPGAs “reconfigure themselves” is really misleading. From the article:
I believe a better description would be “an FPGA is a type of microprocessor that can be reconfigured”.

Whoosh!

[Digital_Stimulus]

@Tuckerfan

Whoosh!

I’m not quite sure where the whoosh is here, so I’ll ask for clarification. The way I’m understanding it: I took your link text – “We just keep pushing our luck, don’t we?” – at face value, when in actuality you meant to hold it up for ridicule. Is that right?

You know, sarcasm (or facetiousness, or snarkiness, or whatever) often doesn’t translate well in text. Based on other threads of yours (e.g., here, with the “Yeah, this strikes me as a bad idea.” comment or here, with the snarky “I bet it starts walking it’s handlers into poles.” line), I wasn’t sure how to take it. Please give me some indication as to what you’re trying to get across, so that I can either match the tone or simply avoid these threads.

Thanks.

[Tuckerfan]

@Digital Stimulus

I’m not quite sure where the whoosh is here, so I’ll ask for clarification. The way I’m understanding it: I took your link text – “We just keep pushing our luck, don’t we?” – at face value, when in actuality you meant to hold it up for ridicule. Is that right?

Yup.

You know, sarcasm (or facetiousness, or snarkiness, or whatever) often doesn’t translate well in text. Based on other threads of yours (e.g., here, with the “Yeah, this strikes me as a bad idea.” comment or here, with the snarky “I bet it starts walking it’s handlers into poles.” line), I wasn’t sure how to take it. Please give me some indication as to what you’re trying to get across, so that I can either match the tone or simply avoid these threads.

Thanks.

Well, as you and others have pointed out, this may turn out to be so much hot air, and saying, “Gee whiz! Isn’t this nifty! I wonder if we’ll ever see anything become of it?” just doesn’t have the comedic potential as taking an oddball stance that somehow all of this stuff is going to wind up creating the Terminator and wiping all of us out. If you’ve got some info which inclines you to think that this is simply vaporware, or is, indeed, likely to actually show up in a product one day, then by all means share it. Afterall, the way these threads are done, means that we can all point to these threads years from now, no matter what happens with the technology and say, “See! Told you so!”

Besides, we all know that deep within the heart of every geek lies the desire to one day have to do battle with time traveling robots that speak with an Austrian accent.