“On August 12 1981, IBM executives held a press conference in New York to introduce a momentous new computer – the IBM Personal Computer. The first IBM PC ran on a 4.77 MHz Intel 8088 microprocessor.” The IBM 5100 was the first IBM PC

The Blue Gene supercomputer operating system is based on the open-source Linux operating system. Applications are written in common languages such as Fortran, C and C++ using standards-based MPI communications protocols. The Blue Gene/P supercomputer is compatible with the diverse applications currently running on the Blue Gene/L supercomputer, including leading research in physics, chemistry, biology, aerospace, astrophysics, genetics, materials science, cosmology and seismology.

New Power6 chip offers environmentally-friendly computing with reduced power consumption.

IBM claims it is not only the world’s fastest microprocessor but one also able to help cut electricity consumption of datacentres, which makes them more environmentally friendly.

The new Power6 processor clocks in at 4.7GHz and has 8MB of Level 2 cache. The chip has an internal bandwidth of 300Gbps, which IBM said would be fast enough to download the entire iTunes catalogue (20TB of data) in 66 seconds.

According to IBM, the new chip is also twice as powerful as the Deep Blue supercomputer that beat Gary Kasparov at chess in 1997. It also claims that the chip is 2.3 times more powerful than its nearest rival.

The 65nm chip also features improvements in the way instructions are executed within the chip. IBM says its researchers increased chip performance by keeping static the number of pipeline stages – the sets of operations that must be completed in a single cycle of clock time – making each stage faster, removing unnecessary work and doing more in parallel. This, said the company, cuts execution time in half or reduces energy consumption. The new chip can also power down memory in a system when it is not being used.

IBM also boasts a new method of chip design, which allows the processor to be used at low voltages as well as in high performance environments. Bradley McCredie, an IBM Fellow, said that the system would save ’90 per cent of floor space, 90 per cent of energy costs and 90 per cent per core software costs.’

IBM also unveiled the latest iteration of its Unix operating system Aix. Aix 6 promises new virtualisation and security features. A beta of the new operating system will available to customers and ISV to download this summer, according to the company.

If you are then it would be NORC