Beowulf in a Box (fwd)

[Robert G. Brown]

On Wed, 30 Sep 1998, Shachar Tal wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> On Tue, 29 Sep 1998, Robert G. Brown wrote:
> 
> > As long as Intel hasn't/doesn't get into the beowulf business itself, I
> > think that they are relatively "safe" from the government from an export
> > control point of view -- if a customer like, say, Israel or India wants
> > to buy ten high end Intel boxes they certainly can (and do!).  If they
> > want to buy a T3E or Origin or SP2, however, they have to literally make
> > a diplomatic issue of it, which is expensive, cumbersome, and negatively
> > impacts sales.
> 
> Well, we in Israel thought about this a long time ago :)
> 
> Check out http://www.cs.technion.ac.il/Labs/Millipede

I will -- it was actually conversations with Joan Adler (who is
visiting Duke at the moment) that stimulated the remark -- she's told
me something of your beowulfian efforts, past and planned:-).  

Still, I have this vision of a mustachioed Colonel with sandy hair and
ruddy cheeks, sitting in the Pentagon somewhere receiving an
"intelligence" report pulled from a newspaper announcing that India
has built a beowulf in Poona capable of (XXX GFLOPS or whatever)
turning to his aide and sputtering "What?  Without State Department
Permission?  Something must be done about it!  Sancho!  My Sword!"

   rgb

Robert G. Brown	                       http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/
Duke University Dept. of Physics, Box 90305
Durham, N.C. 27708-0305
Phone: 1-919-660-2567  Fax: 919-660-2525     email:rgb@phy.duke.edu