Apple is not the company you normally think of when you hear the word “supercomputer”, but nevertheless it can now count itself among the ranks of the supercomputing elite, courtesy of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute. Technicians and students at Virginia Tech have assembled a supercomputer using 1,100 64 bit G5 Apple Macs. In effect, they have linked together 2,200 IBM p5 chips and the result is a massive processing capability capable of 7.41 trillion operations per second.

As far as supercomputers go, that makes it at least the fourth fastest in the world. Virginia Tech is still taking measurements and is suggesting that the final rating may be significantly greater. The three faster machines (in order) are the Japanese Earth Simulator, a machine at the Los Alamos Laboratory and one at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories.

If you’re thinking “so what?”, the “so what” is that this computer was assembled in the space of about one month using a largely volunteer labour force and cost just a little over $5million. Compare that to the typical $100million to $250million and many months that it normally costs to assemble a world leading supercomputer. Supercomputers are normally put together slowly in a custom built manner that takes time and money – although the Lawrence Livermore system which has 2,304 Intel Xeon processors was also assembled on the cheap, with an estimated cost of somewhere between $10m to $15m. It is slightly faster than the Virginia Tech machine at 7.63 trillion operations per second.

The decision to assemble the computer seems to have been almost a spontaneous act. Sceintists from Virginia Tech met with Apple in June this year just after it launched its new screamingly fast 64 bit desktop and Apple agreed to provide the college with some of the first machines off the line. It turns out to have been a clever move by Apple that will undoubtedly increase its credibility in many areas outside academia.

The latest point release of Mac OS X, version 10.3, is code named Panther. Yes, version 10.3, despite the fact that OS X is really only 3 years old. The version numbers lie, but to be honest OS X looks a lot more mature that Windows which is in version god-knows-what. The fact that this is a point release is also misleading if you judge it on the basis of what it includes that’s new. It’s impressive. The only negative is that Apple wants $130 for the upgrade, but it is probably worth the price.

The new features can be classified into three areas:

1. The GUI: The Apple GUI has always been better than Windows to the point where there’s no sense in comparing, but Apple continues to improve it. Apple has added cleverly organized navigation shortcuts using a sidebar, a feature called Exposé which displays all open windows as an array of panels for you to select from (this is probably far more useful than a simple description can express), colour coded file labeling and multiple user desktops (as in Windows XP), which includes a fancy rotating transition with one desktop rotating to nothing while the next comes forward.
2. Utilities: Panther has built-in faxing with automatic print-out of faxes, a homegrown version of Acrobat Reader, Text Edit a text program that can work with simple MS Word documents and a zipping feature for files (as in Windows). Safari, Apple’s browser has received a make-over and continues to be a lot better than Explorer. If you weren’t aware one of the nice features of Safari is that it automatically blocks pop-ups.
3. Security: Panther adds transparent file encryption that is virtually unbreakable (in case your lap-top gets stolen), automatic log-off after a period of no activity, secure trash that actually overwrites discarded files, and it also includes scheduled shut down and start-up (which is more about saving electricity than keeping the PC secure). Also there is a neat anti-spam feature that will be a godsend to most home PC users.

In fact security has never been much of a problem for Apple users. These Apples don’t get worms or other kinds of malware – and that on its own is becoming a good enough reason to join the Apple community.