[OT] multicore/cpu history Re: Are the critiques in "All the things I hate about Python" valid?

2018-02-19 Thread Adriaan Renting



Adriaan Renting| Email: rent...@astron.nl
Software Engineer Radio Observatory
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>>> On 17-2-2018 at 22:02, in message
,
Chris
Angelico  wrote: 
> On Sun, Feb 18, 2018 at 5:05 AM, Steven D'Aprano
>  wrote:
>> On Sat, 17 Feb 2018 15:25:15 +1100, Chris Angelico wrote:
>>

...

>>> Totally not true. The GIL does not stop other threads from
running.
>>> Also, Python has existed for multiple CPU systems pretty much since
its
>>> inception, I believe. (Summoning the D'Aprano for history lesson?)
>>
>> If you're talking about common desktop computers, I think you're
>> forgetting how recent multicore machines actually are. I'm having
>> difficulty finding when multicore machines first hit the market, but
it
>> seems to have been well into the 21st century -- perhaps as late as
2006
>> with the AMD Athelon 64 X2:
> 
> No, I'm talking about big iron. Has Python been running on multi-CPU
> supercomputers earlier than that?
> 
>> By the way, multiple CPU machines are different from CPUs with
multiple
>> cores:
>>
>> http://smallbusiness.chron.com/multiple-cpu-vs-multicore-33195.html
> 
> Yeah, it was always "multiple CPUs", not "multiple cores" when I was
> growing up. And it was only ever in reference to the expensive
> hardware that I could never even dream of working with. I was always
> on the single-CPU home-grade systems.
> 

Multicore became a thing with the Pentium 4 hyperthreading around ~2002
for consumers, and
multi cpu was a thing much longer, even with "consumer grade"
hardware:

I remember running 2 Mendocino 300 MHz Celerons on a Pentium II Xeon
motherboard to get a
multi-cpu machine for running multiple virtual machines for testing
purposes around 1998.
This was not as Intel intended, but a quite cheap consumer grade
hardware solution.

...
> 
> ChrisA

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Re: [OT] multicore/cpu history Re: Are the critiques in "All the things I hate about Python" valid?

2018-02-19 Thread Chris Angelico
On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 10:39 PM, Adriaan Renting  wrote:
> I remember running 2 Mendocino 300 MHz Celerons on a Pentium II Xeon
> motherboard to get a
> multi-cpu machine for running multiple virtual machines for testing
> purposes around 1998.
> This was not as Intel intended, but a quite cheap consumer grade
> hardware solution.
>

Thanks! That's the sort of thing I was looking for. Out of curiosity,
what was the purpose of that rig and its dual CPUs? Were you running
the host system on one CPU and the guest on another?

ChrisA
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