SUPERCOMPUTER

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Made by: Runtov Constantin
Group: I1802
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DEFINITION
• A supercomputer is a very powerful computer. It is used for
carrying out calculations at a very fast rate. It deals with huge
amount of data, but still does not compromise on speed. They
are used for calculations involved in complex processes. For
example – analyses and forecasting of global weather pattern is
conducted by using supercomputers.
• These computers are very expensive and consume a lot of
power. They are kept in controlled environment which offers a
special cooling system and security features.
• Mainframe computers fall in the category of large computers.
These computers are commonly used in large organizations.
They provide access to frequently required data, which is stored
in huge databases. These computers are capable of storing
billions of records.
• They are mostly used as specialized servers. They are generally
priced at a range from 30,000 dollars and above. They also
require a protective system which offers special air conditioning
for keeping them cool. Almost every mainframe can run
multiple operating systems, and therefore rather than operating
as a single computer it acts as a number of virtual machine
HISTORY
I. Supercomputer
II. Mainframe
 I. • In 1960 Sperry Rand built the Livermore Atomic Research
Computer (LARC), today considered among the first supercomputers, for
the US Navy Research and Development Centre. It still used high-
speed drum memory, rather than the newly emerging disk
drive technology. Also among the first supercomputers was the IBM 7030
Stretch. The IBM 7030 was built by IBM for the Los Alamos National
Laboratory, which in 1955 had requested a computer 100 times faster than
any existing computer. The IBM 7030 used transistors, magnetic core
memory, pipelined instructions, prefetched data through a memory
controller and included pioneering random access disk drives. The IBM
7030 was completed in 1961 and despite not meeting the challenge of a
hundredfold increase in performance, it was purchased by the Los Alamos
National Laboratory. Customers in England and France also bought the
computer and it became the basis for the IBM 7950 Harvest, a
A circuit board from the IBM 7030 I supercomputer built for cryptanalysis.
• The third pioneering supercomputer project in the early 1960s was
the Atlas at the University of Manchester, built by a team led
by Tom Kilburn. He designed the Atlas to have memory space for
up to a million words of 48 bits, but because magnetic storage with
such a capacity was unaffordable, the actual core memory of Atlas
was only 16,000 words, with a drum providing memory for a
further 96,000 words. The Atlas operating system swapped data in
the form of pages between the magnetic core and the drum. The
Atlas operating system also introduced time-sharing to
supercomputing, so that more than one programe could be executed
on the supercomputer at any one time. Atlas was a joint venture
between Ferranti and the Manchester University and was designed
to operate at processing speeds approaching one microsecond per The pilot Atlas in the Department of Electrical
instruction, about one million instructions per second. Engineering, University of Manchester, in 1960.
• The only computer to seriously challenge the Cray-1's performance in the
1970s was the ILLIAC IV. This machine was the first realized example of
a true massively parallel computer, in which many processors worked
together to solve different parts of a single larger problem. In contrast with
the vector systems, which were designed to run a single stream of data as
quickly as possible, in this concept, the computer instead feeds separate
parts of the data to entirely different processors and then recombines the
results. The ILLIAC's design was finalized in 1966 with 256 processors
and offer speed up to 1 GFLOPS, compared to the 1970s Cray-1's peak of
250 MFLOPS. However, development problems led to only 64 processors
being built, and the system could never operate faster than about 200
MFLOPS while being much larger and more complex than the Cray.
Another problem was that writing software for the system was difficult,
and getting peak performance from it was a matter of serious effort.But A Cray-1 preserved at
the partial success of the ILLIAC IV was widely seen as pointing the way the Deutsches Museum
to the future of supercomputing. Cray argued against this, famously
quipping that "If you were plowing a field, which would you rather use?
Two strong oxen or 1024 chickens?"
II.
• Several manufacturers produced mainframe computers from the late 1950s
through the 1970s. The US group of manufacturers was first known as "IBM
and the Seven Dwarfs"::p.83 usually Burroughs, UNIVAC, NCR, Control
Data, Honeywell, General Electric and RCA, although some lists varied. Later,
with the departure of General Electric and RCA, it was referred to as IBM and
the BUNCH. IBM's dominance grew out of their 700/7000 series and, later, the
development of the 360 series mainframes. The latter architecture has
continued to evolve into their current zSeries mainframes which, along with the
then Burroughs and Sperry (now Unisys) MCP-based and OS1100 mainframes,
are among the few mainframe architectures still extant that can trace their roots
to this early period. While IBM's zSeries can still run 24-bit System/360 code, 1964)
(
the 64-bit zSeries and System z9 CMOS servers have nothing physically in a i nf rame
 m
common with the older systems. Notable manufacturers outside the US M 704
An IB
were Siemens and Telefunken in Germany, ICL in the United
Kingdom, Olivetti in Italy, and Fujitsu, Hitachi, Oki, and NEC in Japan.
The Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries manufactured close copies of
IBM mainframes during the Cold War; the BESM series and Strela are
examples of an independently designed Soviet computer.
COMPARISION
 BASIS FOR COMPARISON SUPERCOMPUTER MAINFRAME COMPUTER
Basic Supercomputers fastly perform large and Mainframe computers act as a server,
complex mathematical computations. stores large database and serve a large
number of users simultaneously.

Invention IBM invented the first successful

The supercomputer can execute billions of Mainframe computers can execute millions
Speed floating point operations in a second. of instruction simultaneously.

Size Supercomputers are the largest computers Mainframe computers are also large
in the world. computers but somewhat smaller than
supercomputer.

Expense Supercomputers are the most expensive Mainframe computers are also expensive
computers of the worlds. but less than supercomputers.

Operating system The modern supercomputers have Linux Mainframe computer has the ability to run
operating system and derivative variants of multiple operating system. simultaneously.
Linux operating system.
 A super computer usually includes more
Many banks of internal storage, multiple
than one CPU (Central Processing Unit),
Components input/output devices and magnetic disk and
memory, I/O system,
tape storage.
and an interconnect.

Example Cray supercomputer IBM ES/9000

Nuclear weapon development, accurate Used for typical bulk data processing like
Application Areas weather forecasting, host processes for a census industry and consumer statistics,
local computer ERP, and financial transaction processing

Measurement Floating point operations per second Millions of instructions per second
KEY DIFFERENCE
1) The supercomputer is known for its fast computation of complex mathematical operations; it
executes the billions of floating point operation in a second. The mainframe computers act as a
server; it supports a large database, multiple user and multiprogramming, it is basically for large
business transactions.
2) The first successful supercomputer, Cray1 was invented by the Seymour Cray in the year 1976.
The IBM is the most successful and dominant manufacturer of the mainframe computer.
3) Supercomputer is the fastest computer of the world whereas; the mainframe computer is also faster
but less than a supercomputer.
4) Supercomputer is the largest computer. However, the mainframe computer is also large but less
than a supercomputer.
5)  Supercomputers are more costlier than mainframe computers.
6) The modern supercomputer operates on Linux or its derivative variants. However, the mainframe
computer can run multiple operating systems as a single entity.
• These two behemoths of
the computer world,
mainframes and
supercomputers, will
continue to dominate the
heavy duty computing
needs of business,
science, government, and
many other fields. Their
power and specialized
capabilities make them
well-suited for their
particular tasks
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