US Air Force Buying Another 2,200 PS3s

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thambos

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http://games.slashdot.org/story/09/11/25/0527205/US-Air-Force-Buying-Another-2200-PS3s?from=rss

bleedingpegasus sends word that the US Air Force will be grabbing up 2,200 new PlayStation 3 consoles for research into supercomputing. They already have a cluster made from 336 of the old-style (non-Slim) consoles, which they've used for a variety of purposes, including "processing multiple radar images into higher resolution composite images (known as synthetic aperture radar image formation), high-def video processing, and 'neuromorphic computing.'" According to the Justification Review Document (DOC), "Once the hardware configuration is implemented, software code will be developed in-house for cluster implementation utilizing a Linux-based operating software."
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interesting stuff. i wonder how they're running linux on the slims since sony removed the OS option in the newer firmware.
 
Intesting indeed. Sony will love this. Too bad they aren't making a profit on hardware yet....

or maybe, they're setting up all these 2200 PS3s to get a Modern Warfare 2 lan party going. War propaganda FTW. ;)
 
Crossbar said:
It´s not slims, if you follow the links:
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which link? i didn't see anywhere in either article. is it in the .doc?

you're probably right. unless sony makes an order just for them w/ older firmware, or gives them firmware to flash with.

i assumed they were slims because the article said

grabbing up 2,200 new PlayStation 3 consoles...
already have a cluster made from 336 of the old-style (non-Slim) consoles...
Click to expand...
 
Phil said:
Intesting indeed. Sony will love this. Too bad they aren't making a profit on hardware yet....

or maybe, they're setting up all these 2200 PS3s to get a Modern Warfare 2 lan party going. War propaganda FTW. ;)
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Stop stealing my cynicism.
 
thambos said:
which link? i didn't see anywhere in either article. is it in the .doc?

you're probably right. unless sony makes an order just for them w/ older firmware, or gives them firmware to flash with.

i assumed they were slims because the article said
Click to expand...

This link which is found in the original article.
 
If there's one thing about my experience (in the past) with US Government procurement based projects... their processes are such that only proven technology is used... many times, to the point where they rely on obsolete, but proven technology -- and go through great lengths to ensure supply / maintenance of those items. I remember in 1993/4, a project I worked on was a cutting-edge development that was on a special "fast track" -- as such, we got to use such exotic and esoteric technology such as the Intel 80286 processor or 8088 microcontrollers -- that was when our desktop computers were at least 486 or in my case, 68030 based (I had a MacSE), and I believe the Pentium (original) was just rolling out.

BTW, that project with the 8088 microcontrollers (a variant of the 8086) controlling a TI 320C26 DSP (my baby), was in some ways... similar in architecture, on a macro-level, to the CELL/CBE design with the PPU/SPUs... only, instead of heterogeneous cores, we had heterogeneous processors on the same PC board... it's funny how, as the French say, the more things change, the more things stay the same... oh, and I know it's not classified to say this, but it was a cryptographic project. The CBE's make for a great crypto platform. I wish I had one of those back in 1993...
 
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maybe that 286 had to survive radiations in case of a nuclear war.
in a similar vein, the automatic pilot in your plane runs on five 386 board, and hubble's 386 was replaced ten years ago with.. a 486!
 
Blazkowicz said:
maybe that 286 had to survive radiations in case of a nuclear war.
in a similar vein, the automatic pilot in your plane runs on five 386 board, and hubble's 386 was replaced ten years ago with.. a 486!
Click to expand...

Exactly. Real-time, fault-tolerant systems depend on proven, time-tested, cheap parts. I can't address the EMP or even the Tempest questions, but it would be safe to assume that those systems sat in a hardened/protected area.
 
Gradthrawn said:
Part of me, the part that flies, is scared to even Google that to verify it. :LOL:
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Frankly, I feel more comfortable with that fact... I'd rather not have it such that the flight controls (in a Fly-by-wire plane) were written by a programmer who just "learned" how to code on the latest/greatest CPU -- a CPU that hasn't gone through multiple revisions to sort out bugs in the microcode...

That said, software is... fallible... maybe I shouldn't use a word with "fall" in it, in this case.
 
I think it may depend on the needs. They already have 336 PS3s deployed before. This is just an expansion.

The cluster is used for:
"The Air Force has used the cluster to test a method of processing multiple radar images into higher resolution composite images (known as synthetic aperture radar image formation), high-def video processing, and "neuromorphic computing," or building computers with brain-like properties."

Doesn't sound like a system in the field unless they are building Skynet.
 
sure, you already can get ridiculous purely software bugs. I remember reading about a fighter aircraft that rolled and went belly up when finding itself flying below sea level. This would be an uncomfortable situation (can't even dare trying ejecting yourself :LOL: )
 
Phil said:
Intesting indeed. Sony will love this. Too bad they aren't making a profit on hardware yet....

or maybe, they're setting up all these 2200 PS3s to get a Modern Warfare 2 lan party going. War propaganda FTW. ;)
Click to expand...

At this point, the just liquidating old hardware that isn't likely to sell is a nice win. Chances are either the losses were already incurred in a previous quarter thus the subsequent quarter gets a nice bonus of revenue seemingly out of nowhere, or the anticipated writedown becomes less because hardware that wasn't moving suddenly moves instead of incurring the costs of sitting in inventory.
 
The PR-value of that order is worth plenty.
USAF must be a dream customer to Sony to show off the power of Cell. :cool:

I´d expect a lot of news sites to pick up that story.


Don´t know what to make of this though:
The Air Force will use the system to "to determine the best fit for implementation of various applications," including commercial and internally developed software specific to the PS3's Cell Broadband Engine processor architecture. The research will help the Air Force decide where Cell Broadband Engine processor-derived hardware and software could be used in military systems.
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Upcoming Cell chip customer?

The suggested radar application reminds of one of the Transputer applications.
Anyone else remembering the Transputer?
 
they could use Spurs for some real time processing.
else I don't believe we'll see PS3 hardware on the battlefield. That recalls the ridiculous Saddam Hussein's Playstation 2 guided missiles story.

here is it :)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/12/19/iraq_buys_4000_playstation_2s/

Unnamed military source? 'Sony marketing mouth' would be a better description.


"Applications for this system are potentially frightening," said another intelligence source. "One expert I spoke with estimated that an integrated bundle of 12-15 PlayStations could provide enough computer power to control an Iraqi unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV -- a pilotless aircraft."
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no comment on that :LOL:

"Bundled [sic] PlayStation computers could also be used to calculate ballistic data for long-range missiles, or in the design of nuclear weapons... Iraq has long had difficulty calculating the potential yield of nuclear devices - a critical requirement in designing such weapons," says the WND story.
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duh
 
Blazkowicz said:
they could use Spurs for some real time processing.
else I don't believe we'll see PS3 hardware on the battlefield.
Click to expand...
Well, XBox hardware is activate on the battlefield.

At least, according to UK military recruitment advertisements, a UAV is piloted on an XB360 controller! :D
 
Blazkowicz said:
maybe that 286 had to survive radiations in case of a nuclear war.
in a similar vein, the automatic pilot in your plane runs on five 386 board, and hubble's 386 was replaced ten years ago with.. a 486!
Click to expand...

You'd be surprised (possibly) to find that to be the norm. Most the items flying in space are older process node components a lot of people today would call junk. Larger components are less prone to failure when struck by a stray atomic nucleus travelling close to the speed of light, and thus more reliable. If we started launching 32nano stuff up right now, it'd likely be dead within six months or less. Heavy shielding doesn't help much either - that one stray nucleus becomes a shower of other particles when it hits the shielding, turning a bullet into a shotgun blast aimed directly at the electronics.

So people may actually wish to give a sigh of relief, instead of a grimmace that what goes into the air is usually running something forgotten since antiquity.
 
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