H P C S E L E C T N E W S The Electronic News Magazine for High-Performance Computing *** May 10: Volume 2, Number 19. Circulation: 11,062 *** ============================================================================= FREE RETRIEVALS! Maximum Strategy, the world leader in RAID storage solutions for high- performance computing, is sponsoring free retrievals for ALL USERS. This allows you to retrieve the full text of any story listed in this issue or previous issues of Select News. This free service will remain available through Monday, May 16. For Select News subscription information, select 601. ============================================================================= This week's edition of Select News is sponsored by: APPLIED PARALLEL RESEARCH INC. Announcing a Three-Day Parallel Processing Workshop in June For complete details, select 730. ============================== IN THIS ISSUE ================================ House Testimony on the HPCC Program From Four HPC Industry Leaders 338) COMMENTARY: Wabi, Amber, Pink, Ole and Windix Go to Cairo 892) BENCHMARKS: NAS Results -- The Lower-Upper Diagonal Benchmark 340) LETTERS: Anything But Massive, But What Other Name for Parallelism? 894) FACTS & FIGURES: Performance Numbers for New SPARCstation 10 Models ============================================================================= ***************************************************************************** NEWS BRIEFS 1036) IBM's GF-11 COMPLETES LARGEST COMPUTER CALCULATION EVER Yorktown Heights, N.Y. -- A year-long calculation on an experimental IBM supercomputer has provided the strongest evidence yet that quantum chromodynamics is the correct description of the properties and behavior of nature's most fundamental subnuclear particles, IBM said Monday. -------------------- 1037) INTEL'S MASI CALLS FOR INCREASED SOFTWARE FOCUS FOR HPCC Washington, D.C. -- Stressing the need for scalable HPC application software during his House testimony Tuesday, Intel Supercomputer president Edward A. Masi called for an outreach program to involve independent software vendors more closely in the U.S. High-Performance Computing and Communications program. -------------------- 1038) PARSYTEC UNVEILS T9000-BASED XPLORER PARALLEL DESKTOP SYSTEM West Chicago, Ill. -- Parsytec, the leading developer and manufacturer of transputer-based parallel processing systems, officially announced its T9000-based Xplorer parallel desktop system. -------------------- 1039) GULFSTREAM AEROSPACE INSTALLS CONVEX C3840 FOR JET DESIGN Richardson, Texas -- Convex Computer Corp. announced that Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. of Savannah, Ga., has installed a Convex C3 Series supercomputer for use in designing its family of jets. -------------------- 1040) WATERWAYS EXPERIMENT STATION BECOMES FIRST DOD HPC CENTER Vicksburg, Miss. -- The U.S. Army Engineer Waterways Experiment Station has officially become the first Department of Defense High-Performance Computing Center with the signing a $40 million contract with Cray Research for a Cray C90 supercomputer. -------------------- 1041) ORACLE, US WEST DEVELOPING SERVER FOR INFORMATION HIGHWAY San Francisco, Calif. -- Oracle Corp. and US West Tuesday announced a joint development project for a multimedia information server that will allow customers to access information "at any time, from any place, in any form, with any appropriate device." -------------------- ALSO THIS WEEK: (Full stories available from more@hpcwire.ans.net) 1042) University of Southampton Installs Meiko CS-2 MPP System 1043) Four SHPC Firms Back Demand for Japanese Trade Compliance 1044) Tatung Follows Sun Closely With New SPARCstation 10 Clones 1045) Convex Eliminates CFC Use in Supercomputer Manufacturing 1046) Social Scientists to Expand Scope of Studies Through HPC 1047) Swanson and Parametric Team Up to Provide Ansys/ProFEA 1048) Network Systems to Acquire Bus-Tech Inc. for $24.5 Million 1049) ParaSoft Announces Insight Software Development Environment 1050) Canon to Form Workstation Company Based on NeXT Machines 1051) Sun Claims Top Performance Marks for New SPARCserver 1000 1052) Falcon Systems Offering Exabyte's 10-GB EXB-8505 Subsystem 1053) Cray Computer Loses $11.5 Million in First Quarter of 1993 1054) Swanson Analysis Enjoys 5.5 Percent Leap in Revenue in 1992 1055) For the Record: Miscellaneous HPC News and Notes -- 21 Items ***************************************************************************** QUOTE OF THE WEEK: 895) "Two years ago, the number of users of the present data network, Internet, was estimated at about 100,000. Today there are more than one and a half million computers on the Internet and almost 10,000 networks." -- Donald Lindberg, director of the National Coordination Office for the federal HPCC program. ***************************************************************************** INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT 730) APR Announces Parallel Processing Workshop in June ***************************************************************************** ANALYSIS & FEATURES 338) WABI, AMBER, PINK, OLE AND WINDIX GO TO CAIRO Commentary by Norris Parker Smith, Editor at Large The heading of this article is not the title of a trendy new art film about multinational terrorists but a series of code words signifying that desktop operating systems, long so solid and predictable, are entering a season of change, complexity and difficult choices. -------------------- 339) FEATURE: PARALLEL VOLUME VISUALIZATION OF VERY LARGE CFD CODES Massively parallel computers are being used to solve extremely large computational fluid dynamics (CFD) problems. Advanced visualization techniques are needed to analyze and interpret the many gigabytes of data routinely generated by these simulations. -------------------- 340) ANYTHING BUT MASSIVE, BUT WHAT OTHER NAME FOR PARALLELISM? Feedback From the Readers of Select News Almost nobody seems to like "massively parallel" as a descriptor for systems with lots of processors, but so far there seems to be no agreement on an alternative term or nomenclatural framework. Some recent suggestions submitted by Select News readers follow. ***************************************************************************** SCIENCE NEWS 433) Amazing New Plastic Can Withstand Heat of Nuclear Explosion 434) 66 Percent of Americans Live With Excessive Air Pollution 435) LLNL, Xerox to Study Behavior of Atoms on Device Surfaces ***************************************************************************** 506) ACTIVE HPC STOCKS CLOSING 04/28 CLOSING 05/12 CHANGE Storage Technology Corp. 27 3/4 36 1/2 + 8 3/4 Cisco Systems Inc. 42 5/8 49 + 6 3/8 Oracle Corp. 34 39 1/2 + 5 1/2 Hewlett-Packard Co. 73 78 1/8 + 5 1/8 (To receive a full list of 69 HPC stocks, select 506.) ***************************************************************************** SELECT NEWS INFORMATION 601) Subscription Rates for HPC Select News 602) Contribute Your News, Tips and Information for Select News 603) HPC Select News Masthead and Contact Information ***************************************************************************** OTHER INFORMATION AVAILABLE THIS WEEK: BENCHMARKS 892) NAS Benchmark Results: The Lower-Upper Diagonal Benchmark INTERNET RESOURCES 893) Alex Graphical User Interface Now Available Over Internet FACTS & FIGURES 894) New SPARCstation 10 Configurations and Performance Numbers HOUSE TESTIMONY ON HPC 895) Donald Lindberg, Director of the National Coordination Office, HPCC 896) Malvin H. Kalos, Director of the Cornell Theory Center 897) Edward A. Masi, President of Intel's Supercomputer Systems Division 898) Jeffrey Kalb, President and CEO of MasPar Computer Corp. BACK ISSUES 950) A Complete Index of HPC Select News Back Issues ***************************************************************************** HPC SELECT NEWS' MOST REQUESTED ITEMS FOR THE WEEK OF MAY 3-7 886) Configurations and Performance for the Kendall Square KSR1 334) Analysis: Tracking Supercomputer Vendors: A Cakewalk No More 337) Commentary: Data Highway Involves More Than Just Fiber and Bandwidth 885) NAS Benchmark Results: The Integer Sort Benchmark ***************************************************************************** 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 918) FastComm 920) R.J. Harvey & Assoc. 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