Overview
  [Supercomputing]
  [Project Development]
  [Project Design]

Login Procedure
  [ssh (Putty) ]
  [Tutorial]

Unix
  [Basic Commands]
  [Utilities]
  [Pico]
  [Cygwin]

C++
  [Background]
  [Tutorial]
  [Advanced Syntax]

Java
  [Background]
  [Tutorial - Unix]
  [Tutorial - PC]
  [Advanced Syntax]

Graphics
  [gnuplot]
  [Tutorial]

Extras
  [Cygwin-X11]
  [E-mail]
  [ftp]
  [HTML]
  [Resources]

Supercomputing Challenge
  [Home Page]
  [Technical Guide]

Supercomputing is performing computational science on high-performance computers. This statement introduces two questions: what is computational science, and what are high-performance computers.

Computational science is a discipline in which a scientific problem, be it one of biology, physics, geology, medicine, engineering, or any other field, is modeled by one or more mathematical equations. These equations are typically so computationally intensive that it might take human beings years to solve the problem by traditional pencil and paper methods. Thus, these equations must be solved by a computer, where the work can be accomplished in relatively little time. Similarly, the output can be so complex that it must also be interpreted by a computer. Often this means displaying the output in some type of graphical format.

As you can see, computational sciece isn't just computer programming, but it includes any general area of science along with math and computer science.

The definition of a high-performance computer (or a supercomputer), changes daily since computers are continually getting stronger and faster. Therefore, a high-performance computer could simply be considered to be one of the "best" at the current time.

For Challenge participants, you have direct access to a high-performance computer, and the ability to gain access to another if your project demonstrates the need for more computing power.

The first of these machines is named "mode". It is a PC with two Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 3.20GHz processors and runs the Red Hat distribution of the Linux operating system. Note that, from a user point of view, Unix and Linux are relatively indistinguishable.

Another machine is the mauve machine which is a 256 node Shared Memory Processor machine. However, it takes special programming techniques to utilize all of the power that mauve has. Furthermore, the Challenge only grants computer accounts on mauve to those teams who display the need to have access for so much computing power. E-mail if you realize that mode is not powerful enough to run your program.

You may access these machines from your home or school computer by using an ssh program.

Supercomputing Challenge — Questions? e-mail: