72 PS2 hooked up in a supercomputer project.

Check this:

TECH TV
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http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/supergeek/story/0,24330,3474732,00.html

PS2 Supercomputer
     

Everything you need to know to understand our discussion with Craig Steffen, one of the scientists working on a supercomputer made of Sony PlayStation 2 consoles.
Watch today at 7 p.m. and tomorrow at 8 a.m. and 12 p.m. Eastern.
 
By Tom Merritt
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Deep in the heart of Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, some very smart people have linked together a room full of Sony PlayStation 2 game consoles. They use the cluster as a tool for scientific computing and high-resolution visualization, harnessing the unique properties of the PS2\'s main computer chip. Machine rooms are staffed 24 hours a day.


Yes, HAL, the insane computer of "2001: A Space Odyssey," originated in Champaign-Urbana. Coincidence? I think so.


Does today\'s guest, Craig Steffen, actually work with a PS2 supercomputer? Yes. He explores new technologies for making clusters of computers. Here are a few more dirty details to help you get the most out of our interview with him.


What is a cluster?

The PlayStation 2 consoles are linked in a computer cluster, often called a Beowulf cluster, where several computers are linked together to harness their combined computing power as one machine. You can learn more about computer clusters at Beowulf.org.


Why a cluster of PS2s?

The group plans to use the PS2\'s 3-year-old design as a test bed and learning tool until Sony releases the PlayStation 3.


"[We want] to provide a test platform for multimachine programs that use lots of resources that people might be interested in running on PS2s," Steffen says.


There are two parts to the investigation:


Make PS2s into a cluster (70 machines) as a platform.

Develop the capability to use Vector Units properly on that platform.

I still don\'t get it. Why PS2s?

Two things make PS2s unique:


Graphics processor and main CPU on same chip
According to Steffen, the PlayStation 2 differs from PCs by having a general-purpose processor and its specialized graphics processor on the same die (computer chip).

"The CPU core can use the graphics hardware [Vector Units] to do numerical calculations," Steffen explains. "This allows you to write general-purpose programs that use the computational power of the Vector Units."



Linux for the PS2
Sony makes a Linux kit for the PS2. The Linux kit includes hardware that turns the PS2 into a general-purpose computer. Steffen says the Linux distribution provides them with the access and tools they need to harness the CPU.

Linux hobbyists can buy the kit for around $200. You need to dedicate a memory card to it.


Just tests so far

The group has run a few scientific applications on the cluster. The tests simulated interactions of quarks and gluons in subnuclear particles.


Who are these people anyway?

The National Science Foundation funds the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) and awards groups computing time. Since it\'s centralized, the NCSA can staff machine rooms 24 hours a day.


The NCSA built the 70-node PS2 cluster. A group of three or four people in the University of Illinois computer science department work on the application end of things.


Get more details about the project at the Scientific Computing on the Sony PlayStation 2 webpage set up by Craig Steffen and the NCSA folks.


Joshua Brentano contributed to this article.

 

Posted July 10, 2003


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More details at:

http://arrakis.ncsa.uiuc.edu/ps2/

Data Format
The vector unit uses 4-component vectors (containing X, Y, Z, and W fields) as operands. Each field is a 32-bit (single-precision) floating point number, thus all the main data pathways inside the Emotion Engine are 128 bits wide.

The Emotion Engine stores 32-bit floating point numbers equivalently to IEEE 754 single precision (8 bit exponent, 23 bit mantissa), but does not fully implement that standard. The vector units do not explicitly support NANs, INFs, or non-normalized values. They also do not halt if a floating point exception occurs (dividing by zero for instance). Instead, a bit in a status register is set, which must be checked by user code. The Emotion Engine does not support 64-bit floating point values.


Execution Units
The vector unit has two execution units, "upper" and "lower". Machine instructions (for micro-mode execution) are 64 bits, with one half controlling each of the execution units. The two units execute in parallel, one instruction per clock. The upper execution unit controls the FMACs, and so upper instructions are multiply and/or add instructions. The lower execution unit controls the divider, and also does integer operations, loads, stores, jumps, and general register operations.
The upper execution unit contains four Floating-point Multiply-Accumulators. Each FMAC can execute a multiply-add sequence every clock tick. This means that each VU can calculate a matrix times vector (4x4 times 4x1) in 7 clocks (throughput of 4), and a 4x4 matrix times matrix calculation in 19 clocks (throughput of 16).
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and son on...yadda yadda blah blah blah...


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It is all very fascinating...but it\'s not that i understand what
they\'re talking about...but still very fascinating!!! LOL.

didn\'t adan post this some time ago?

I did... without all those data, that were interesting to read

[Kurt Angle]

A least we now know what the PS3 will look like.

[Titan]

I\'ve heard of this a while ago. Too much to read so late at night though.