H P C w i r e The Text-on-Demand E-zine for High Performance Computing *** February 17, 1995: Vol. 4, No. 7 Circulation: 17,706 *** This Week's Table of Contents Represents 221 Pages of Text ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Article Retrieval instructions at end of this file . For a free 6-week trial subscription, email: . -------------------- * -------------------- 7037) DEC & the Financial Trading Industry: A Commercial Application of HPC Booz Allen Estimates Worldwide Trading Industry to Spend $7 Billion to Equip 100,000 Traders in 3,000 Financial Institutions Worldwide Technology Needs...Market Forces...Market Data Distribution Systems... Decision Support and Risk Management Applications _______________________________ IN THIS ISSUE _____________________________ | | | 1547) Technosnapshot: Fujitsu's New VPP300: 2.2 GFLOPS/CPU by Late 1995 | | 5166) SDSC Security Experts Help FBI Capture Computer Terrorist | | 1545) Commentary: GLOPS, BLOPS and PLOPS: An End to Performance Confusion | |___________________________________________________________________________| *** Watch for next week's Special Supplement Issue *** HPCwire's 1995 HPC Hardware Buyer's Directory IN THE NEWS ================================================================= COMMERCIAL NEWS Lines 5148) CARNEGIE MELLON AND VISA FORM NETBILL PARTNERSHIP...................114 This electronic commerce system is based on open standards that link merchants and customers on computer networks. It focuses on reducing the cost of making transactions for very small amounts of information. SCIENCE & ENGINEERING NEWS 5149) SHERPA ON HP9000/ORACLE IN USE AT AEROJET & FRENCH AUTOMAKER PSA.....77 Running on Oracle7, SHERPA goes into production at two initial customer sites -- rocket propulsion systems leader Aerojet and French automaker PSA which builds Peugeot and Citron cars and components and is a new Sherpa customer. 5150) SP2 YIELDS BREAKTHROUGHS IN SURGICAL TECHNIQUES/HELICOPTER DESIGN...152 Research at Rensselaer includes collaborative effort with Columbia U. to understand relationships between bones and joints in the human body; another project is developing new parallel-platform software tools to test advanced, new helicopter designs as comprehensive computer models. NEWS BRIEFS ================================================================= 5151) Russian Manuf. Picks DEC's Alpha Technology for Its Workstations...46 5152) Braintron High-Performance Engine Delivers Supercomputing Power....26 5153) Concurrent Computer Ships 200 Megahertz MAXION.....................36 5154) Rapid Growth Spurs nCUBE to Relocate Corporate Headquarters........36 5155) Mercury Computer Brings Scalable, Realtime Performance to VMEbus...63 5156) Ciprico Disk Array Gets SGI's Gold Seal for Spectra 6000...........38 5157) Informix Ships New Enterprise Gateway for Database Connectivity....44 5158) MOSC Consortium Has Multichip Video Processor Test Vehicle.........68 CONTRACTS/VENTURES/ACQUISITIONS 5159) Fujitsu/HaL Develop Next Generation 64-bit RISC Processor..........34 5160) IBM/Parallax Graphics Supply Workstation Network Digital Video.....68 5161) Sun/Ancor Have Fibre Channel Connection for RAID Mass Storage......41 5162) Newbridge Wins Three Europe Frame Relay Contracts..................35 5163) ATM Connectivity Agreement for proFILE File Servers................61 FINANCIAL WATCH 5164) Ten Most Active NASDAQ HPC Stocks..................................22 5165) Cray Computer Reports 1994 Net Loss of $37+ Million................81 SUPERHIGHWAY REPORT 5166) SDSC Security Experts Help FBI Capture Computer Terrorist.........119 5167) Black Sea Fiberway Consortium to Link Turkey/Bulgaria/Romania......29 5168) BBN Server to Link Boston Schools/Library to Gateway Project.......49 5169) Sony to Launch Online Service in September on the Internet.........50 5170) BellSouth Expands Information Highway to Commercial Customers......77 ___________________________ INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT ___________________________ | | | 7038) IBM RISC System/6000 Backup/Restore Solution for STK Tape Libraries | | 7034) Sony and TRI-PLEX Transfer Digital Movies via HIPPI at 32 Mbytes/Sec| | 7035) Digital's AlphaServer 2100 Takes "Server Of The Year" Award | | 7026) "The Reinvention of Supercomputing: SGI and the Changing Technology"| | An IDC White Paper* (*Note: new email address included) | | 7032) HPC Community Welcomes Technology Transfer Quarterly | | 7023) 'Selling Your Story to the Business Press' Has New Locations | |___________________________________________________________________________| QUOTE OF THE WEEK =========================================================== 5150) "Parallel processing is the coming wave of the future, and Rensselaer plans to expand the use of our parallel computing system beyond the sciences." -- Dr. William Jennings, Dept. Head, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute FEATURES ==================================================================== 1545) GLOPS, BLOPS AND PLOPS: AN END TO PERFORMANCE CONFUSION.............178 A Fanciful Commentary by Norris Parker Smith, Editor at Large GLOPS (Gloating Point Operations per Second) & its ancillary acronyms, BLOPS and PLOPS, are suggested as possible cures for the confusion and misunderstandings of the present means for measuring the performance of high-performance systems. 1546) STREET MAP OF THE MIND: BRAIN RESEARCH AT PSC.......................130 Feature by Michael Schneider, Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center How does perception transform in an instant to action? Where's the owner's manual with the wiring diagram of the mind that shows all the connections? 1547) FUJITSU'S NEW VPP300: 2.2 GFLOPS/CPU BY LATE 1995...................173 Technosnapshot by Norris Parker Smith, Editor at Large Fujitsu's powerful (2.2 GFLOPS/CPU) CMOS VPP300 multiprocessor at prices of $200 per MFLOP is a real threat to competitors but will not be available until late this year. Meanwhile, other vendors burrow solidly into the market. HPCwire INFORMATION ========================================================= 7000) Subscription Information/Get On-Off Mailing List/Letters to the Editor Back Issue Index/Masthead, Email Contacts, Submission Tips............9 JOB BANK ==================================================================== 667) Employment Opportunities..........................................163 Listings from: Cambridge Parallel, Convex, Cornell Theory Center, Hughes Research Lab, HPCwire, IBM POWERparallel, IBM TJ Watson Research Center, MadenTech Consulting, NEC, University of Minnesota*, Optimax Software, SGI Switzerland < * > New Listings This Week 604) WE WANT YOU -- LOOKING FOR A FEW GOOD ... PEOPLE!..................92 OTHER DEPARTMENTS =========================================================== SCIENCE & HUMAN INTEREST 3154) Extra-terrestrial Search Has Begun in Australia....................88 3155) Exotic Insects and Diseases Biggest Non-Human Threat to Forests....63 CONFERENCES 2888) Calendar of Upcoming HPC Events (1 New Listing, 1 Update).........114 New Listing: Software Engineering for Higher Education Update: Selling Your Story to the Business Press ______________________H P C w i r e S P O N S O R S______________________ | | | Full background information on all Sponsoring Companies | | | | 900) Ampex 915) Genias Software *905) Maximum Strategy | |*912) Avalon Computer 930) HNSX Supercomputers 906) nCUBE | | 921) Cray Research Inc. 902) IBM Corp. 932) Portland Group | | 907) Digital Equipment 904) Intel Corp. 935) Silicon Graphics | | 909) Fujitsu America 916) MasPar Computer 931) Sony Corporation | | *Updated information within last 30 days | |___________________________________________________________________________| *** LAST ISSUE'S MOST REQUESTED ITEMS FROM HPCwire *** 1544) IBM's New SP2 Option Said to Out Hit T3D on NAS Benchmarks.......132 667) Employment Opportunities.........................................163 5145) Mosaic In A Box: First Instant Nationwide Local Internet Access...86 5126) Numerical Algorithms Group Launches Numerical PVM Library.........65 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Copyright 1995 HPCwire. 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