The dumbed down story from the AP was easier to digest about Roadrunner. If you prefer the more complicated take, I did find the Los Alamos plug that doesn’t require a log-in.
Roadrunner is amazing on so many levels. First, it’s made up of commercially available parts such as IBM’s dual-core processors. I figured they’d use quad-core but this monster was six years in the making while dual-core was still on the horizon. Secondly, it only cost $100 million which is a huge bargain for a supercomputer. Normally I’ve grown accustomed to the post-Reagan government throwing billions at such projects, especially with the military applications Roadrunner has if you read the AP story. Finally, a dozen of these computers could fit in the starship Enterprise from the Sixties because it’s only 6000 square feet which is less than 78 feet wide and long; there’s no mention of its height yet I imagine it’s no more than a standard rack (seven feet).
Futurist Syd Mead is right, the tech and possibilities of the future are sooner than we think. However, in my rebuttal, I am still waiting for that permanent moon base my grade school history book (written in the early Seventies) claimed would be operational by 1996.