> > You'd have to ask Don Becker about that. He chose the name when he built > the > first one a few years ago. http://www.beowulf.org/ has a little history. > Actually, it was Tom Sterling, from the Linux mag article: (http://www.linux-mag.com/id/1378)
Why Beowulf? Its possible that youve read this far for the single purpose of finding out where the name Beowulf came from. For a long time, we used the cover story about seeking a metaphor for the little guy defeating the big bully, as in David and Goliath. The cover story continued that Goliath had already been used by a famous historic computer, and the giant was the wrong side of the metaphor anyway. However, I didnt think I would ever get famous building a computer named David. Searching other cultures for equivalent folklore, I recalled the epic saga of Beowulf, the Scandinavian hero who saved the Hrothgars Danish kingdom by defeating the monster Grendel. (I didnt need to search the archives of ancient civilizations to discover the saga of Beowulf. My mother did her graduate studies in old and Middle English literature and I was brought up on the stuff.) Good story, but completely untrue; so, I discarded the name as a possibility. But in truth, Id been struggling to come up with some cutesy acronym and failing miserably. With some small embarrassment, you can find examples of this in our early papers, which included such terms as piles of PCs and even PoPC. The first term was picked up by others at least briefly. Thankfully, the second never was. Then one afternoon, Lisa, Jim Fischers accounts manager, called me and said, Ive got to file paperwork in 15 minutes and I need the name of your project fast! or some words to that effect. I was desperate. I looked around my office for inspiration, which had eluded me the entire previous month, and my eyes happened on my old, hardbound copy of Beowulf, which was lying on top of a pile of boxes in the corner. Honestly, I havent a clue why it was there. As I said, I was desperate. With the phone still in my hand and Lisa waiting not all that patiently on the other end, I said, What the hell, call it Beowulf. No one will ever hear of it anyway. End of story. But the other truth is I didnt actually name Beowulf, the computer. I only named Beowulf, the project. Someone out there in the land of the press coined the term Beowulf-class system, not me. I would love to know who it was. Thats the real irony: I get the credit for naming Beowulf clusters and actually I didnt do it. -- Doug -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. _______________________________________________ Beowulf mailing list, [email protected] To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
