On Tue, 14 Dec 2004 18:41:46 -0500 (EST)
William Donzelli <aw288_at_osfn.org> wrote:
> I think the intent was to reduce the ripple, rather than reduce the
> weight. CDC wasn't afraid of a few more pounds.
With smaller transformsers you can squeeze more power in the same
volume. The "energy density" of the PSU is higher / the PSU gets smaller
and the whole machine gets smaller. The size is important as the runtime
of the signals in the machine limmits its max. operating frequency.
Ripple, of course, is also important.
Reminds me of an other Cray thing: Cray said that computer design is
like plumbing: Plumbing of data paths, plumbing of power supply and
plumbing of cooling. :-)
> I doubt you could start a big diesel that fast, reliably.
I saw disels of that size starting in less then 10 seconds. Note that we
are talking about 100 kW or the like. 100 kW is not a big diesel. Many
cars have biger diesel engines. A ship diesel engine with multipe MW is
big.
> The inertia would, however, protect against little dips and burps in
> the power, when the utilities are fooling around with the grid.
An other important fact.
--
tsch??,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
Received on Wed Dec 15 2004 - 03:45:22 GMT