Giant computers, in the family of modern electronic computers, top the list with the best performance, the strongest capacity and the most sophisticated technology.
Today, giant computers have become an important tool for scientists and engineers to conduct scientific research.
It is not an exaggeration to say that the level of giant computers not only indicates the level of a country's computer technology, but also reflects a country's comprehensive national strength, is a computer on the laurels of the pearl, so that countries around the world have attached great importance to its research and development.
The initial giant computer, the world's first computer was built in 1946 "Eniaka".
It was the fastest computer of its time: it could perform 5,000 addition operations per second.
It had the highest performance of its time: it could calculate the trajectory of a cannonball.
It was the largest at the time: covering an area of 160 square meters.
It consumed the most electricity at the time: 150 kilowatts.
It was the most expensive at the time: a budget of 150,000 dollars.
However, it was only a moment of glory before it was replaced by a later one.
In late 1996, the U.S. Department of Energy's National Laboratory and Intel Corp. jointly announced the launch of a giant computer capable of 10,000 billion operations per second. The computer, which is mainly used to simulate nuclear explosion tests, has 86 chassis, about as big as a small room, and more than 9,000 high-energy Pentium processors make up its "super heart". The supercomputer weighs 44 tons and consumes 850 kilowatts of electricity, requiring 300 tons of air-conditioning equipment to cool it.
Compared with the original giant computer "Enyaka", computing speed increased by 2 billion times, see, the development of computer technology is how amazing ah!
Mega-computers determine a country's economic competitiveness, because many major scientific and technological issues, have to ask mega-computers to help, such as: the development of good performance, energy-saving cars and airplanes; more accurate forecasting of the weather; predicting global climate change; improve the research model of the environment; improve the military system; research on the universe is how to form; the design of better medical drugs; the design of new materials, research on the nature of new materials; the design of a new computer, and the development of a new computer. new materials and studying the properties of new materials; studying the structure of biological molecules; and so on. Thus, in a sense, what kind of computing conditions there are, what kind of research level there is. Obviously, it is very important to vigorously develop giant computer technology.
The giant computer is a computer family of behemoths, also known as supercomputer. Its computing speed and memory capacity, are far ahead of other types of computers, so the need for a huge amount of computational work, such as complex scientific calculations, it must be used.
The level of the megacomputer not only indicates the level of a country's computer technology, but also reflects a country's comprehensive national strength, is the crown of the computer on the pearl. Countries attach great importance to it. China's development of the Galaxy - Ⅰ, Galaxy - Ⅱ is a giant machine.
Jumbo machines are expensive, and only important scientific research, military departments to use it. Therefore, the world's annual production of no more than a hundred units, the possession of only a few hundred units.
Jumbo machines are characterized by fast computing speed and large memory capacity. Large memory capacity is relatively easy to solve, because the memory chip is basically a standard, can be mass-produced. At present, 16M (16 megabits) has been sold in large quantities, and 1G (1024 megabits) has also been successfully produced on a trial basis. Galaxy-II memory capacity of 2048MB, equivalent to 8X256M, can be done with 128 16M memory chips connected together. The memory capacity of the current advanced megacomputers is above the GB level.