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Why is the U.S. military buying PS3? | December 28, 2009
Jonathan Strickland
Or "Divide this number," or, "Find the largest two prime integers of this number." So, that’s what a processor does, is it executes the command upon the data and then gives the result. So, that’s the basic function of a processor. Now, the cell processor is a little different. It’s kinda a specialized processor.
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Get in touch with technology with TechStuff from HowStuffWorks.com.
Chris Pollette
Hi there, everybody and welcome to TechStuff. My name is Chris Pollette and I am the tech editor here at HowStuffWorks.com. Sitting across from me, as he always does, is senior writer Jonathan Strickland.
Jonathan Strickland
Hey there, guys! We’re having a bit of an identity crisis today.
Chris Pollette
Who is?
Jonathan Strickland
Yeah.
Chris Pollette
So, we are going to talk about some very strange combinations of things. Actually -
Jonathan Strickland
- Yeah.
Chris Pollette
- you know, one that you might not expect – gaming and -
Jonathan Strickland
- Supercomputing.
Chris Pollette
- supercomputing, yes.
Jonathan Strickland
Yeah, this actually comes courtesy of a little listener text message. Liz, queue something up will you? This text message comes from Tim who says, "What’s up with the U.S. Army buying 2,200 PS3s for a parallel supercomputer cloud system -" question mark. Well, Tim, first of all, it’s not the U.S. Army; it’s the U.S. Air Force, and it wasn’t 2,200 PS3s, it was actually 2,500. But yeah, we get the point of the question here, which is what is up with buying 2,500 PS3s, and how does that make a supercomputer? It all boils down to the PlayStation 3′s processor, which is a cell processor.
Chris Pollette
Yes, this is a custom chip – actually spent quite a lot of money in development and it was under development by a joint venture of three companies -
Jonathan Strickland
- Yes.
Chris Pollette
- in addition to Sony; IBM and Toshiba were both involved with this chip’s manufacturer.
Jonathan Strickland
Um-hum.
Chris Pollette
And it’s a pretty interesting device. It’s what gives the PS3 its oomph and, you know, allows it to do what it can do. It can crunch lots and lots of numbers.
Jonathan Strickland
Right, and so let’s just do a quick overview of what a processor does.
Chris Pollette
Okay.
Jonathan Strickland
And then talk about why the cell processor is slightly different. So, in general, a processor’s job is to take information -
Chris Pollette
- Um-hum.
Jonathan Strickland
- so it’s taking data and executing any sorta function upon that data to get a result.
Chris Pollette
Right.
Jonathan Strickland
So, there are two different lines of data going into a processor at any one time. There’s the source information and then there are the functions – the various code that comes in, that says, "All right, add these numbers together."
“transcript-comment”>Chris Pollette
Um-hum.