H P C w i r e The Text-on-Demand E-zine for High Performance Computing *** July 4, 1996: Vol. 5, No. 28 Circulation: 17,423 *** This Week's Table of Contents Represents 122 Pages of Text ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Article retrieval instructions at end of this file more@hpcwire.tgc.com For subscription information, email sub@hpcwire.tgc.com For a free 4-week trial subscription, e-mail trial@hpcwire.tgc.com -------------------- * -------------------- 7159 ) SUPERCOMPUTING '96 CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS "Computers at Work" is the theme of this year's supercomputing conference, which will be held November 17-22, 1996 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Retrieve Item Number 7159 for a preview of conference highlights. ______________________________ IN THIS ISSUE _______________________________ | | | 8809 ) FEATURES: HOW WORKSTATIONS ARE UNDERGOING MITOSIS | | 8813 ) SCIENCE & ENGINEERING: ITALY'S NEW TERAFLOP COMPUTER | | 8814 ) COMMERCIAL NEWS: MICROSTRATEGY'S STRATEGY FOR SUCCESS | | 8817 ) NEWS BRIEFS: EMSL INSTALLS 208-NODE SP | |____________________________________________________________________________| FEATURES ===================================================================== 8808 ) DEC CEO EXPLAINS POOR Q4 RESULTS & LOSS OF 7000 JOBS...............4.6K Robert Palmer, CEO of Digital Equipment, recently sent this letter to employees, explaining the company's disappointing performance and pending personnel cutbacks. 8809 ) MITOSIS IN WORKSTATIONS AND HP'S PA-8000 CHIP......................6.4K Commentary by Norris Parker Smith, editor at large Workstations are undergoing mitosis, with distinct NT/Intel and RISC/Unix offspring. HP's PA-8000 is further evidence that Unix remains a formidable competitor. But what happens when Intel and HP produce their joint chip? 8810 ) HPC WEB SITES OF INTEREST..........................................3.8K by Alan Beck, managing editor A new quarterly feature briefly lists and reviews provocative HPC-related Web sites. 8811 ) HITS & HISSES: RECLAIM YOUR LIFE: GET OFF LINE!....................4.4K Compiled by Norris Parker Smith, editor at large Imaginary software created by Meredith Hart meets an increasingly pressing need: how can people who become tired of the Web disentangle themselves? SCIENCE & ENGINEERING NEWS 8812 ) TRADITIONAL IDEAS RELATING ENERGY TO INFO TRANSMISSION CHALLENGED..6.3K The notion that a definitive minimal energy cost must be incurred for digital information transmission is being theoretically rebutted by an IBM researcher in the latest issue of Science. 8813 ) ITALIAN RESEARCH CENTER BUILDS TERAFLOP COMPUTER...................3.8K by Alan Beck, managing editor and Simone Cabasino, INFN Billed as a competitor to the Intel/DOE ASCI TeraFLOPS Supercomputer, Italy's APEmille is expected to achieve 1.6 TFLOPS with custom microprocessors at a cost of only $10 million. COMMERCIAL NEWS 8814 ) MICROSTRATEGY SIGNS OVER 50 FORTUNE 500 CLIENTS....................4.6K MicroStrategy has found a distinctly favorable corporate reaction to its efforts toward making data warehouses more amenable to consumerization. Its user-friendly orientation may signify an important trend. 8815 ) ESSBASE DATABASE AND RAID 7 SERVER POST BENCHMARK..................3.1K Storage Computer Corp and Arbor Software have posted results in a recent test of a multidimensional database combined with a RAID 7 storage server. Significant speed increases in load and calculation times were noted. QUOTE OF THE WEEK ============================================================ 8812 ) "...(E)nergy and matter used in sending information need not be thrown away at the receiving end -- they can, in principle, be recycled." -- Rolf Landauer, IBM scientist ___________________________INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHTS______________________________ | 7156 ) Latest Benchmarks of APR's PARALLEL TOOLS on MPP and SMP Systems | | 7120 ) How To Find Hard-To-Find HPC Professionals --- Fast! | | 7158 ) NCSA Offers Exciting New Opportunities For Computer Scientists | | 7141 ) FREE Trial Subscription to WEBster, The Cyberspace Surfer - | | Your Guide to What's News on the Web | | 7153 ) SIGGRAPH 96 Imagine it. Do it. Celebrate it. August 4-8 New Orleans| | 7142 ) Call for Participation Supercomputing '96 Nov.17-22 Pittsburgh, Pa.| | 7122 ) WHAT DO USERS WANT FROM HPC PRODUCTS AND SERVICES? | | A Special State-of-the-Industry Report | |____________________________________________________________________________| NEWS BRIEFS ================================================================== 8816 ) RS/6000 Workstations and CATIA CAD Restore Dresden Church........5.8K 8817 ) Environmental Molecular Sciences Lab Installs 208 Node SP........1.7K 8818 ) GE Capital, Compunet Form Global Technology Services Provider....2.1K 8819 ) Destron Fearing Develops High-Performance Microchip Reader.......1.9K 8820 ) Quintus and Unisys Produce Language-Understanding Technology.....1.6K 8821 ) Performance Software Automates Blood Testing.....................2.7K 8822 ) American TriTech Installs VisiCAD for UK Ambulance Service.......1.9K 8823 ) CSG To Provide Customer Management Solutions on HP Platform......1.7K 8824 ) Essex Completes Prototype Optoelectronic Processor...............1.7K 8825 ) Justice Dept. Will Void Court Order Aimed at IBM.................0.8K 8826 ) The Money Store Selects Informix for Database Standard...........1.5K 8827 ) Nat Systems to Effect High-Volume Web Transaction Processing.....1.5K 8828 ) NEC Denies Dumping Charges in NCAR Win...........................1.2K 8829 ) Btrieve Technologies Becomes Pervasive Software..................1.4K 8830 ) Racal-Datacom to Provide Networking for UK Defense Ministry......2.3K 8831 ) Silicon Graphics Completes Cray Merger...........................1.1K 8832 ) SGI Nearly Doubles Lead on Top 500 List..........................1.5K ============================================================================= SHORT TAKES 8833 ) Product Watch: HP Announces New Interconnectivity Solutions.....15.8K 8834 ) Corporate Liaisons: Active Teams With SGI. Rockwell Buys Brooktree..........................................8.9K 8835 ) Financial Watch: DEC to Cut 7000 Jobs. Borland Expects 1Qtr Loss.5.6K 8836 ) People and Positions: House Named ACM President. Pesatori Resigns..7K JOB BANK ===================================================================== 667 ) Employment Opportunities.........................................3.5K From: Lockheed, Oak Ridge National Laboratories, NCSA (5), Schlumberger, U.K., Cornell Theory Center, Maui Supercomputing Center, IBM Corp., Nichols Research, ARSC.Alaska (4) 604 ) Job Bank Rates and Regulations..................................1.22K CONFERENCES ================================================================== 2888 ) Calendar of Upcoming HPC Events (Updated 07.03.96)...............7.1K HPCwire INFORMATION ========================================================== 670 ) Masthead..........................................................2.2K 601 ) Subscriptions & Removals..........................................2.6K 602 ) Submitting Letters & Articles.....................................1.6K 950 ) Index of Back Issues...............................................11K Comments regarding editorial content may be sent to: editor@hpcwire.tgc.com ______________________H P C w i r e S P O N S O R S_______________________ | Full background information on all Sponsoring Companies | | | | 936) Sony *905) Maximum Strategy 937) Digital Equipment | | 934) HP/Convex Tech. Center930) HNSX Supercomputers 932) Portland Group | | 921) Cray Research Inc. 902) IBM Corp. 915) Genias Software | | 909) Fujitsu 904) Intel Corp. 935) Silicon Graphics | | | | Items marked with an asterisk (*) have been updated within the last month. | |____________________________________________________________________________| -------------------- * -------------------- To date HPCwire has delivered 1,424,803 articles to HPC professionals worldwide *** LAST ISSUE'S MOST REQUESTED ITEMS *** 8780 ) STEVE CHEN JOINS SEQUENT AS TOP TECH..............................5.0K 8781 ) CASHMERE PROJECT DEVELOPS SOFTWARE CACHE-COHERENCE 06.28.96.......8.3K 8790 ) FCC/HNSX/NEC Issue Rebuttal to Supercomputer "Dumping" Charge.....3.1K 7156 ) LATEST BENCHMARKS OF APR'S PARALLEL TOOLS EXHIBIT................32.4K 8837 ) TOP 20 ITEMS RETRIEVED FROM THE PREVIOUS ISSUE OF HPCWIRE.........1.8K ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~