H P C S E L E C T N E W S *** March 5: Volume 2, Number 9 *** ========= News Special ========= News Special ========= News Special ======== 142) LOS ALAMOS CM-5 CLOCKED AT 59.7 GIGAFLOPS ON LINPACK Los Alamos, N.M. -- A 1,024-node Thinking Machines CM-5 installed at Los Alamos National Laboratory has notched world record performance of 59.7 gigaflops on the Linpack benchmark, according to the latest Linpack report released this week. ---------------------------- Also In This Issue ----------------------------- 306) EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Forest Baskett, SGI's Senior VP of R&D 143) NEWS BRIEFS: Thinking Machines Cuts 3-4 Percent of Payroll in Layoffs 824) FACTS & FIGURES: CPU Usage By Discipline at San Diego Super Center 307) NEWS ANALYSIS: Centric's Spectrum FEA Software Challenges Nastran ============================================================================= WELCOME TO HPC SELECT NEWS Select News is a new weekly interactive news and information service covering high-performance computing, from workstations to supercomputers. ***************************************************************************** QUOTE OF THE WEEK: 306) "We probably have the biggest library of parallelized science and engineering applications of any computer company in the world. I'm sure it's larger than Cray's or Convex's right now." -- Forest Baskett, senior vice president of R&D for Silicon Graphics. ***************************************************************************** NEWS BRIEFS 143) THINKING MACHINES CUTS 3 TO 4 PERCENT OF PAYROLL WITH LAYOFFS Cambridge, Mass. -- Thinking Machines Corp. director of marketing James Bailey confirmed this week that the company has laid off some of its employees in a company-wide restructuring effort. -------------------- 144) DESPITE CUTS, HPC INDUSTRY SHOULD GROW IN NATION'S CAPITAL Washington, D.C. -- Despite President Clinton's proposals to cut federal spending in the nation's capital, his budget plan will likely be a boon for high-performance computing professionals in the Washington, D.C., area, according to a Washington Post column by Rudolph A. Pyatt Jr. -------------------- 145) LOW TURNOUT AT SUPERCOMPUTING EUROPE FORCES CHANGES FOR '94 Utrecht, The Netherlands -- Attendance at last month's Supercomputing Europe '93 trade show lagged far behind predictions, with the conference attracting 237 visitors and the exhibition pulling 686, according to the European Supercomputing Information Service. -------------------- 146) THINKING MACHINES CM-200 "CREATES ART" AT NEW PARIS SHOW Paris, France -- A Thinking Machines CM-200 is being used in an innovative art exhibition that debuted Wednesday at the Georges Pompidou Centre in Paris, France. "Evolving Images" is designed to show how people can use computers to interactively create their own works of art. -------------------- ALSO THIS WEEK: (Full stories available from more@hpcwire.ans.net) 147) Digital Announces Performance and Pricing for Alpha Chips 148) Hewlett-Packard Touts Workstation Sales to Federal Market 149) Duke University Acquires 32-Node Thinking Machines CM-5 150) Digital Announces Alpha AXP Sales for Research, Education 151) AVL Installing Cray Y-MP EL to Boost FIRE CFD Performance 152) OpenVMS Clustering Now Available for Alpha AXP Architecture 153) Aries Research Unveils 36-MHz SPARCstation 10 Clone 154) Nagy Named Chief Operations Officer at MacNeal-Schwendler 155) United Technologies Corp. Joins NCSA's Industrial Program 156) Tatung Enters X Terminal Market With TXT Series 157) SunSoft to Open European Software Centre in Dublin, Ireland 158) Hewlett-Packard Unveils Disaster-Tolerant HP 3000 Cluster 159) StorageTek Offers $150 Million in Preferred Stock ***************************************************************************** ANALYSIS & FEATURES 306) Q&A: FOREST BASKETT, SENIOR VP OF R&D AT SILICON GRAPHICS Exclusive Interview by Mathew Burns, Managing Editor Forest Baskett discusses four new systems from Silicon Graphics, from mid- range workstations, to graphics supercomputers, to high-end multiprocessing systems with real floating-point punch. -------------------- 307) CENTRIC'S NEW SPECTRUM: COMPREHENSIVE AND SCALABLE News Analysis by Norris Parker Smith, Editor at Large Palo Alto, Calif. -- Sleighbells in March? A wide range of scientific and engineering users may decide before long that Santa Claus has indeed begun off-season service. Spectrum, a new software package described as capable of "multiphysics finite-element engineering simulation," from startup Centric Engineering Systems Inc., is said to be able to work simultaneously with solid, fluid and thermal dimensions of a user's problem. -------------------- 308) BEYOND COMMUNICATION: BUILDING COLLABORATIONS FOR THE METACENTER Feature Story by Sara Latta, Science Writer, NCSA The successful creation of a national supercomputing metacenter -- the integration, across space, of the four NSF supercomputing centers -- is not just a technical project, but a "sociotechnical" one as well. -------------------- 309) FUJITSU BEATS OUT CRAY, CONVEX FOR U.S. SUPERCOMPUTER SALE News Analysis by Norris Parker Smith, Editor at Large San Jose, Calif. -- The star-spangled curtain has parted, and Fujitsu, for the first time in many years, has sold a supercomputer in the United States. ***************************************************************************** SCIENCE NEWS 403) Supernova Explosion May Have Caused Sunburn for Ancient Man 404) Surveys Suggest Slowdown in Third World Population Growth 405) Scientists Identify Gene at Source of Lou Gehrig's Disease ***************************************************************************** OTHER INFORMATION AVAILABLE THIS WEEK: 998) Free Menu of Items Published Feb. 26, 1993 in HPC Select News 999) Free Menu of Items Published Feb. 19, 1993 in HPC Select News JOBS 707) Senior Workstation Sales Representative in New York State 708) Software Engineer With C++ Experience at MasPar Computer FACTS & FIGURES 822) System Specifications: HP Apollo Series 700 Workstations 823) Systems Comparison: Convex C3 Series 824) CPU Usage By Discipline at the San Diego Supercomputer Center COMPUTER CENTERS 825) Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center: 1992 -- Year in Review RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES 826) NASA Seeks Proposals for HPC Earth and Space Science Research EDUCATION 827) Los Alamos Computational Science Workshop CALENDAR 828) SUPER! IBM's HPC Conference Takes Place Apr. 18-21 in Los Angeles. 829) Xhibition, Covering the X Window System, June 7-11 in San Jose, CA. ***************************************************************************** HPC SELECT NEWS' MOST REQUESTED ITEMS FOR THE WEEK OF FEB. 22-26 815) Comparing the Efficiency of the Cray, Sun 4 and nCUBE 303) Full text of President Clinton's New Technology Initiative 124) NREN Still a Priority for Clinton Despite Science Cutbacks 123) Proliferation Watchdogs Unhappy With Rollwagen Nomination 814) Digital Alpha AXP System Comparison ***************************************************************************** Thank you for participating in this service. Please let us know what improvements we can make to better serve you. Send feedback, suggestions and other ideas to: update@hpcwire.ans.net. ***************************************************************************** SPONSORS: Free information available from the following companies 901) ANS 902) IBM Corp. 903) Network Systems 904) Intel 905) Maximum Strategy 906) nCUBE 907) Digital Equipment 908) Hewlett-Packard 909) Fujitsu America 910) Convex Computer 911) Fed Data 912) Avalon Computers 913) The Smaby Group 914) Sky Computers 915) Genias Software 916) MasPar Computer 917) MMB Development 918) Portland Group 919) Severn 920) R.J. Harvey & Assoc. **************************************************************************** Copyright 1993 HPCwire. HPCwire ENCOURAGES the free distribution and posting of this issue. If you did not receive Select News directly and would like to receive your own free copy each week, send a message to add@hpcwire.ans.net and include in the body of the message your e-mail address.