Record Setting Roadrunner Supercomputer Shuts Down for Good

Maximum PC: Even supercomputers sometimes have relatively short lifespans. So it is with Roadrunner, the first supercomputer to break the petaflop barrier by posting better than 1 million billion calculations per second five years ago. Back then, it was the world's fastest supercomputer, and scientists used it to gain a better understanding of energy flow in nuclear weapons and its relation to weapon yield.