A Brief History of Time

The Cosmos supercomputer was installed at Cambridge University, UK, at the department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics.It was to “enable UK theorists to model the history of the universe from the first fractions of a second after the Big Bang, right to the present day, some ten billion years later”. In 1997, the computer was a Silicon Graphics (now SGI) Origin 2000 server with 32 MIPS R10000 processors, 8 GB main memory, 70 GB hard disks and a tape (DLT) drive stacker. The console was an Indy workstation, and at that time the setup cost 2 million pounds.

Hawking is the principal investigator of the project. Over the years, this was upgraded to an SGI Onyx based 64 processor system. Now, they have plans to significantly upgrade the computer. The new machine will be based around an SGI Origin 3800. More technology upgrades are planned for 2003. The Origin 3800 that will be the new heart of the Cosmos project will have 64 processors running at 500 MHz, 32 GB storage and 32 GB RAM. The existing Onyx will be converted to an 8 processor visualization station. Also part of the setup is a 64 processor PIII 1 GHz based Beowulf cluster. In the second phase, the number of processors in the main machine will be doubled, to 128 processors at 700 MHz. while the visualization station will be considered for upgrade.

Krishna Kumar