H P C S E L E C T N E W S The Electronic News Magazine for High-Performance Computing *** October 1, 1993: Vol. 2, No. 39. Circulation: 11,027 *** This Week's Table of Contents Represents 102 Pages of Text -------------------- * -------------------- To Subscribe: sub@hpcwire.ans.net. Subscription Information: Select 601 For the Select News Masthead and Contact Information, select 603. ***************************************************************************** This week's edition of Select News is sponsored by: ADVANCED NETWORK & SERVICES ANS offers the lowest-cost nationwide Internet access. For complete specifications, select 720. =============================== IN THIS ISSUE =============================== 2109) NEWS BRIEFS: Cray Research Unveils Its T3D Massively Parallel System 1311) COMMENTARY: Cray's T3D -- Mercedes Costs in a Chevy Pickup Market 1313) NEWS ANALYSIS: DEC's High-Performance Strategy -- Farms "R" Us 2824) FACTS & FIGURES: List of the World's Most Powerful Computing Sites 2826) PROFILE: Rick Stevens, HPCC Program Director, Argonne National Lab ============================================================================= ***************************************************************************** NEWS BRIEFS 2109) CRAY RESEARCH UNVEILS ITS T3D MASSIVELY PARALLEL SYSTEM 286 Lines Washington, D.C. -- Cray Research Inc. Monday officially introduced the Cray T3D, the company's first massively parallel processing system, which Cray said will lead the company to MPP market leadership within one year. -------------------- 2110) BORCHERS TO HEAD NSF ADVANCED SCIENTIFIC COMPUTING DIVISION 40 Lines Livermore, Calif. -- Robert R. Borchers, assistant to the director for the University Relations Office at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, h has accepted a post as director of the Division of Advanced Scientific Computing at the National Science Foundation in Washington. -------------------- 2111) nCUBE INTRODUCES PARALLEL STORAGE BAY, LOW-END nCUBE 2S M5 52 Lines Orlando, Fla. -- nCUBE Corp. Tuesday announced an entry-level parallel machine and a high-capacity storage system, both of which are targeted specifically for mission-critical, data-intensive commercial applications. -------------------- 2112) CLINTON DRAMATICALLY RAISES EXPORT STANDARD FOR SUPERS 104 Lines Washington, D.C. -- Industry leaders Wednesday praised the Clinton administration's decision to ease regulations on the export of high- performance computer systems. -------------------- 2113) ARPA PROJECT TO STUDY REMOTE, COOPERATIVE MEDICAL TRIAGE 109 Lines Columbus, Ohio -- The Ohio Supercomputer Center said this week it is working with the University of Hawaii and Georgetown University Medical Center to improve delivery of medical services to remote, disadvantaged regions through medical imaging, supercomputing and satellite communication. -------------------- 2114) U.S. SUPERCOMPUTER FIRMS EXPECT TO WIN JAPANESE CONTRACTS 39 Lines Tokyo, Japan -- For years, U.S. officials and industry executives have charged Japan with violating trade agreements by purchasing Japanese supers over superior American systems. Suddenly, those complaints have stopped. -------------------- ALSO THIS WEEK: (Full stories available from more@hpcwire.ans.net) 2115) Mobil's New 128-Node CM-5 Is Largest MPP in Oil Industry 19 Lines 2116) Oracle7 Relational Database Ported to Kendall Square KSR1 44 Lines 2117) University of Kentucky Installs Convex Meta Series System 63 Lines 2118) New Benchmark Developed to Measure X-Windows Performance 37 Lines 2119) TMC Demonstrates Production Parallel Supercomputing at SEG 29 Lines 2120) Convex C Systems Popular in China for Seismic Processing 42 Lines 2121) New Graphics Accelerators, Terminals Unveiled for RS/6000 87 Lines 2122) Instrumental Releases New Version of PerfStat for Cray 46 Lines 2123) Dataquest Report Puts Sun Atop Technical Workstation Market 28 Lines 2124) Network Systems Acquires Hub-Maker Bytex Corp. for $47M 36 Lines 2125) Carrier Corp. Orders $1.2 Million in Pro/Engineer Software 26 Lines 2126) People & Places: News on HPC Personnel -- 13 Items 159 Lines ***************************************************************************** INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT 720) ANS CO+RE Announces Lowest-Cost Nationwide Internet Access 57 Lines 739) 800 FLY CORP Announces Corporate Travel Savings Via E-Mail 96 Lines 744) Conference: Commercial Applications of Parallel Systems 392 Lines ***************************************************************************** QUOTE OF THE WEEK: 2109) "Cray Research is now the MPP technology leader. A year from today, we expect to be the leading MPP vendor." -- Cray Research chairman and CEO John F. Carlson ***************************************************************************** ANALYSIS & FEATURES 1311) CRAY'S T3D: MERCEDES COSTS IN A CHEVY PICKUP MARKET 189 Lines Commentary by Norris Parker Smith, Editor at Large Cray Research claims exceptional raw performance and superior price/performance for its new T3D vector/scalable hybrid, due in part to low latency made possible through a dense but expensive design. Cray's T3D venture may pay off, especially in sales to existing customers, but at the cost of lower margins. -------------------- 1312) PSEUDOSPECTRAL METHOD SHEDS NEW LIGHT ON PHOTOSYNTHESIS 114 Lines Feature Story by Steve Eisenberg, Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center Taking clues from turbulence models, Richard Friesner of Columbia University has gained insight into the molecular structure of chlorophyll, the catalyst for photosynthesis in plants. His grid-based pseudospectral approach for large molecules has proven to be significantly more efficient than traditional electronic structure techniques like Gaussian 92. -------------------- 1313) DEC'S HIGH-PERFORMANCE STRATEGY: FARMS "R" US 96 Lines News Analysis by Norris Parker Smith, Editor at Large Palo Alto, Calif. -- While too-numerous competitors dig frantically into scalable computing, Digital Equipment has chosen to concentrate systematically on farms (known elsewhere as clusters) of workstations and on loosely coupled switched systems. -------------------- 1314) MESSAGE-PASSING: LETTERS TO THE EDITOR/CORRECTIONS 23 Lines -- Los Alamos System Ran CM-5 Aerospace Application at 37.5 GFLOPS ***************************************************************************** SCIENCE NEWS 493) Biosphere 2 Crew Emerges Healthy, Happy -- and Hungry 63 Lines 494) Scientists Record Strange Flashes Far Above Thunderclouds 42 Lines 495) New Project to Test Thousands of Plants for Drug Potential 34 Lines ***************************************************************************** SELECT NEWS INFORMATION 601) Subscription Information for HPC Select News 57 Lines 602) Contribute Your News, Tips and Information for Select News 24 Lines 603) HPC Select News Masthead and Contact Information 41 Lines ***************************************************************************** JOB BANK 657) Software Engineers at Kuck & Associates; Intel; Cornell 27 Lines 604) Post Your Help Wanted Listings in Select News' Job Bank 95 Lines ***************************************************************************** OTHER DEPARTMENTS: BENCHMARKS 2823) Xmark93: Standardized Measurement of X Performance 176 Lines FACTS & FIGURES 2824) List of the World's Most Powerful Computing Sites 898 Lines 2825) Worldwide Competitive Ranking of U.S. Computer Firms 13 Lines RESEARCH PROFILE 2826) Rick Stevens, HPCC Program Director, Argonne National Lab 49 Lines USER GROUPS 2827) Intel Supercomputer User Group's Annual Conference 77 Lines BOOKSHELF 2828) "Understanding Japanese Information Processing" 59 Lines CONFERENCES 2829) NetWorld Dallas, October 5-7, in Dallas, Texas 58 Lines BACK ISSUES 950) A Complete Index of HPC Select News Back Issues 35 Lines ***************************************************************************** LAST WEEK'S MOST REQUESTED ITEMS FROM HPC SELECT NEWS 2088) Power2 Chip Nearly Doubles Performance of IBM RS/6000 Line 97 Lines 1307) Cray Claims Best Price/Performance for Scalable T3D 168 Lines 490) LANL Scientist Publishes Blueprint for Microscopic Computer 83 Lines 2090) IBM Touts Commercial Uses for New Scalable Parallel System 107 Lines ***************************************************************************** S E L E C T N E W S S P O N S O R S Product specifications and company information in this section are available to both subscribers and non-subscribers. 901) ANS 902) IBM Corp. 903) Network Systems 904) Intel SSD 905) Maximum Strategy 906) nCUBE 907) Digital Equipment 908) Hewlett-Packard 909) Fujitsu America 910) Convex Computer 911) FDC Technologies 912) Avalon Computer 913) The Smaby Group 914) Applied Parallel Res. 915) Genias Software 916) MasPar Computer 917) MMB Development 918) FastComm 919) Transtech Parallel 920) R.J. Harvey & Assoc. 921) Cray Research Inc. ***************************************************************************** Copyright 1993 HPCwire. Feel free to distribute this Table of Contents. ***************************************************************************** NEXT WEEK IN SELECT NEWS: * Feature Story: Your Cheatin' Heart -- Modeling Cardiac Arrhythmias * Facts & Figures: Worldwide MPP Market By Industry Sector