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Can you pass the PDC Pub quiz?

Published May 16, 2016

PDC Pub Quiz 2016

For any of you who missed the recent PDC Pub and Open House, here is a chance to test your knowledge with the Pub Quiz. (The answers will be published later.)

GPUs
On GPU systems it is necessary to have very large number of threads. To simplify the architecture, a group of threads (known as a warp) are processed at the same time. How many threads are there in a warp?

1. 16
X. 32
2. 64

OpenMP
The OpenMP standard 4.0 includes directives for offloading on GPUs, but what is the similarly named set of directives that also allow GPU offloading using directives?

1. OpenACC
X. OpenGL
2. OpenSOC

Intel Xeon Phi
The second generation Xeon Phi architecture has the code name Knights Landing. What is the maximum number of cores available on a single Knights Landing card?

1. 60
X. 64
2. 72

PDC helpdesk
The desk at the PDC entrance used to be the external disk unit for the Thinking Machine computer Bellman at PDC. What was the total capacity of that disk unit?

1. 5 GB
X. 10 GB
2. 20 GB

Servers
Most of the servers at PDC are rack-mounted. However, one server was located under the raised floor. What was its original purpose? (It is now decommissioned.)

1. License server
X. Login node
2. Security monitoring system

Text editors
Editor holy wars are quite common. Which UNIX text editor is famously known as the standard text editor?

1. vi
X. emacs
2. ed

PDC Crays
How many Cray systems have there been at PDC (excluding the test and development system Ida)?

1. 2
X. 3
2. 4

Intel Sandy Bridge
The peak number of flops for the same clock speed is double on Intel Sandy bridge processors compared the previous generation of Intel chips. What changed?

1. An additional vector unit was added
X. The vector length was doubled
2. Something else

Intel Haswell
The peak number of flops of Intel Haswell cores is also twice that of Intel Ivy Bridge. Why?

1. The clock speed was doubled
X. The vector length was doubled
2. The introduction of a new instruction

The Martian
In the movie “The Martian”, when the NASA scientist character played by Donald Glover sat next to a supercomputer and directly connected a laptop to it, what did his screen flash when the calculation was finished?

1. CALCULATION COMPLETED
X. CALCULATION CORRECT
2. PRESS ANY KEY TO CONTINUE

INTERCAL
INTERCAL is an acronym for a programming language first developed by two Princeton students in 1972. What is it an acronym for?

1. INTERactive CAlculation Language
X. INTERChained Algorithm Language
2. Compiler Language With No Pronounceable Acronym

Oxen vs chickens
Who famously quipped “If you were ploughing a field, what would you rather use: Two strong oxen or 1024 chickens?”

1. Stephen Wolfram
X. Seymour Cray
2. Steve Jobs