6 ms·

Not to burst your bubble, but that is just the vacuum can on the dilution refrigerator and is a standard piece of hardware you will see in many physics labs. T

Not to burst your bubble, but that is just the vacuum can on the dilution refrigerator and is a standard piece of hardware you will see in many physics labs. There wasn't really any product design beyond slapping the IBM logo on there.

lozaning 8y ago
Of course there was. Deciding what not to add is just as much of a design decision as what to add. I spend no time in physics labs, and like the parent i too find the aesthetic quite striking.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- reaperducer 8y ago
  That's a lot of glass for the cleaning crew to wipe down each night. I wonder if it takes special training, or if someone just sticks a "Do not touch" Post-It note to the thing.
  - mschaef 8y ago
    Or "Do Not Erase!"
    - Beltiras 8y ago
      Or "Do not think about it. Tantamount to observation which will interfere with the calculations."
    - rbanffy 8y ago
      Now I imagined replacing the glass panes with transparent LCDs or LED displays that would give an idea of system status at a glance. These machines are, like the supercomputers I mentioned, meant to be displayed as a status symbol.
      - mschaef 8y ago
        > replacing the glass panes with transparent LCDs or LED displays I guess the CM-1/2/200 machines are the quintessential example of this. The Cray-2's cooling system isn't an active display, but it gets style points too (IMHO). (But...I've worked in a few places that used glass windows (or other glass surfaces) as whiteboards... That's really what I was thinking of. :-) )
        rbanffy 8y ago
        The Cray-2 had some indicator lights on the top of each lobe. I'm not sure how helpful they were to gain an understanding of what the computer was doing. I can't tell how much work my home cluster is doing by looking at the ethernet switch LEDs. The LCD would nicely replicate the window-as-whiteboard experience though, at the sacrifice of some readability, because the object behind the glass is so interesting.

lozaning 8y ago

Of course there was. Deciding what not to add is just as much of a design decision as what to add. I spend no time in physics labs, and like the parent i too find the aesthetic quite striking.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
reaperducer 8y ago
That's a lot of glass for the cleaning crew to wipe down each night. I wonder if it takes special training, or if someone just sticks a "Do not touch" Post-It note to the thing.
- mschaef 8y ago
  Or "Do Not Erase!"
  - Beltiras 8y ago
    Or "Do not think about it. Tantamount to observation which will interfere with the calculations."
  - rbanffy 8y ago
    Now I imagined replacing the glass panes with transparent LCDs or LED displays that would give an idea of system status at a glance. These machines are, like the supercomputers I mentioned, meant to be displayed as a status symbol.
    - mschaef 8y ago
      > replacing the glass panes with transparent LCDs or LED displays I guess the CM-1/2/200 machines are the quintessential example of this. The Cray-2's cooling system isn't an active display, but it gets style points too (IMHO). (But...I've worked in a few places that used glass windows (or other glass surfaces) as whiteboards... That's really what I was thinking of. :-) )
      - rbanffy 8y ago
        The Cray-2 had some indicator lights on the top of each lobe. I'm not sure how helpful they were to gain an understanding of what the computer was doing. I can't tell how much work my home cluster is doing by looking at the ethernet switch LEDs. The LCD would nicely replicate the window-as-whiteboard experience though, at the sacrifice of some readability, because the object behind the glass is so interesting.