FREE RETRIEVALS! Maximum Strategy has agreed to sponsor free retrievals for ALL USERS. This allows you to retrieve any story from the Select News information server that is listed in this issue or previous issues of Select News. Free retrievals will remain available through May 13. ============================================================================= H P C S E L E C T N E W S The Electronic News Magazine for High-Performance Computing *** May 7: Volume 2, Number 18. Circulation: 10,987 *** ============================================================================= This week's edition of Select News is sponsored by: MAXIMUM STRATEGY INC. The World Leader in RAID Storage Solutions for High-Performance Computing. Strategy Will Extend Its Lead in 1993 With the Availability of the Company's Latest Breakthrough RAID Technology, Gen 4. For Strategy Gen 4 specifications and fact sheet, select 905. ============================== IN THIS ISSUE ================================ 1018) NEWS BRIEFS: Insider trading probe further delays Rollwagen hearings 334) ANALYSIS: Tracking Supercomputer Vendors: A Cakewalk, No More 885) BENCHMARKS: NAS Benchmark Results -- The Integer Sort Benchmark 886) FACTS & FIGURES: Performance for Kendall Square KSR1 Configurations ============================================================================= ***************************************************************************** NEWS BRIEFS 1018) INSIDER TRADING PROBE FURTHER DELAYS ROLLWAGEN HEARINGS Washington, D.C. -- The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is investigating alleged illegal insider trading in the stock of Cray Computer Corp., in late 1991. As a result, the Senate confirmation hearings for deputy secretary of commerce-designate John Rollwagen, former CEO of Cray Research have been suspended. -------------------- 1019) U.S. MONITORING JAPAN'S SUPERCOMPUTING BUYS BEFORE ACTION Washington, D.C. -- U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor said that the U.S./Japan supercomputer agreement is of "grave concern" to the White House because of reports that the Japanese are not complying with its requirements. Kantor said trade sanctions might be carried out if Japanese procurement policies are found to be unfair. -------------------- 1020) CRAY Y-MP MODELS ACTUAL EL NINO EFFECTS ON 1992 CLIMATE Washington, D.C. -- Researchers at NOAA explained how the eruption of Mount Pinatubo and the El Nino-Southern Oscillation created warmer, drier weather conditions over much of the globe in 1992. They also predicted that current conditions would hold through the summer, which should mean a second summer in a row with relatively few hurricanes for the U.S. -------------------- 1021) NCR PARALLELISM AND ORACLE SPEED CANADA'S MISLAID MAIL San Diego, Calif. -- Canada Post Corp (CPC), Canada's postal monopoly, is using an NCR 3600 massively parallel computer system running ORACLE Parallel Server software to implement a new change-of-address system designed to redirect more than 12 million pieces of mail a year, at half the cost and double the speed of its previous system. -------------------- ALSO THIS WEEK: (Full stories available from more@hpcwire.ans.net) 1022) RS/6000 Receipts in 1st Q '93 Up 50% over 1992 1023) Matisse OODBMS Ready for Parallel KSR1 in 1st Q '94 1024) Argonne FEA Code Achieves 333-Fold Speedup on Intel Delta 1025) Caterpillar Wins NCSA Industrial Challenge Award for VR Use 1026) DEC Announces SPARCstation Trade-In Program for Alpha AXP 1027) Defense Intelligence Agency to Buy 5,400 Sun Workstations 1028) Network Systems Ships New DXE Units for Routing, Networking 1029) AutoCAD and New MCAD Software Released for SGI Workstations 1030) StorageTek Eliminates CFCs From Manufacturing Operations 1031) Three Vendors Team to Manage E-Mail Backbone Using SNMP 1032) Sun Microsystems Foundation Grants $284,580 to 12 Groups 1033) HP Workstations to Help Improve French Air-Traffic Control 1034) Cray to Install Its First System on the African Continent 1035) Alias Opens SGI-Based Software to Standard Digital Formats ***************************************************************************** QUOTE OF THE WEEK: 1019) "It is crucial that the Japanese be prevented from repeating a previous pattern and close their market to massively parallel computers after similar Japanese products become available." -- An unnamed US official quoted by Reuters on the US/Japanese supercomputer agreement. ***************************************************************************** INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT 729) Digital Alpha AXP Systems Available on the Internet ***************************************************************************** ANALYSIS & FEATURES 334) TRACKING SUPERCOMPUTER VENDORS: A CAKEWALK NO MORE Financial Analysis by Gary Smaby, Smaby Group A decade ago, tallying up annual sales in the supercomputer market was a cakewalk. It was so simple, in fact, that I could single-handedly turn around this task between morning cups of coffee. Today, our research staff is lucky to pull together deceptively simple year-end stats like those at the end of this column before the spring solstice. -------------------- 335) OPTICAL STORAGE WINNING RESPECT FOR PERMANENCE & CAPACITY News Analysis by Norris Parker Smith, Editor at Large Optical storage -- including the magneto-optical flavor -- is slowly gaining respect after a long struggle as one of those technologies that looks good but never quite seems to work out. -------------------- 336) FEATURE: IMPROVEMENTS AND DEVELOPMENT POLICIES FOR LS-DYNA3D Three-dimensional non-linear impact response analysis, applied in automotive crash analysis, has become the focus of much attention in fields where supercomputers are used. Originally developed for weapons research, DYNA3D has been extended by Livermore Software to support functions like airbag/dummy modeling and sheet-metal forming. -------------------- 337) DATA HIGHWAY INVOLVES MORE THAN JUST FIBRE AND BANDWIDTH Commentary by Norris Parker Smith, Editor at Large It now seems that the telecommunications barons, cable nabobs, grand jesters of entertainment, and others are taking the initiative and may perhaps pave the data superhighway without government help (or interference). ***************************************************************************** SCIENCE NEWS 430) Livermore Lab Identifies Valuable Fingerprinting Material 431) Survey: Doctors Unwilling to Help Patients Commit Suicide 432) "Bizarre New Group of Birds" Found in Mongolian Fossils ***************************************************************************** SELECT NEWS INFORMATION 601) Subscription Rates for HPC Select News 602) Get Involved With Tips and Contributions for Select News 603) HPC Select News Masthead and Contact Information ***************************************************************************** OTHER INFORMATION AVAILABLE THIS WEEK: BENCHMARKS 885) NAS Benchmark Results: The Integer Sort Benchmark FACTS & FIGURES 886) Configurations and Performance for the Kendall Square KSR1 887) New Configurations and Prices for Sun's SPARCclassic Family RESEARCH REGISTER 888) GRIDGEN and EAGLE: Numerical Grid-Generation Software 889) A Computational Fluid Dynamics Study of Arterial Disease INTERNET INFORMATION 890) Gopher Digs Up Information on the San Diego Supercomputer Center EDUCATION 891) Used PC's and MAC's needed for children BACK ISSUES 950) A Complete Index of HPC Select News Back Issues ***************************************************************************** HPC SELECT NEWS' MOST REQUESTED ITEMS FOR THE WEEK OF APRIL 26-30 331) Commentary: Will Clustering Long Shot Win the Roses in Parallel Derby? 1000) Convex Announces Details for Its First Scalable MPP Machine 883) Press Conference: Convex/HP Announce MPP System, Software Licensing 882) Parallel Virtual Machine (PVM) Version 3.1 Now Available ***************************************************************************** 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) Applied Parallel Res. 915) Genias Software 916) MasPar Computer 917) MMB Development 920) R.J. 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