H P C w i r e The Text-on-Demand E-zine for High Performance Computing *** Aug. 9, 1996: Vol. 5, No. 33 Circulation: 17,056 *** This Week's Table of Contents Represents 223 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 _______________________________ | | | SIGGRAPH 96 -- HPCwire SPECIAL REPORT FEATURES THE HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK | | | | 8983 ) COMMENTARY: DEC'S LATEST ALPHA SERVERS: WHO NEEDS MULTIPROCESSING? | | 8987 ) SCIENCE & ENGINEERING NEWS: THE INNER LIFE OF RUST | | 8988 ) COMMERCIAL NEWS: CBIS BUILDS STATE-OF-THE-ART DATA CENTER | | 8991 ) ARIS CORP. PURCHASES CRAY SOLUTIONS SOFTWARE CONSULTING GROUP | |____________________________________________________________________________| ============================== SIGGRAPH 96 =================================== Held this week in New Orleans, SIGGRAPH 96 showcased bleeding-edge technology from the graphics, animation and visualization fields. HPCwire editor in chief Alan Beck was on site to report on the trends and announcements evident at this event. 8968 ) NEWTEK OFFERS MULTIPLATFORM ANIMATION SOFTWARE.....................5.3K by Alan Beck, editor in chief As the graphics market opens wider to include Windows NT and other newcomers, software developers are trotting out packages aimed at this emerging market. HPCwire talks with NewTek about the newest version of Lightwave 3D. 8969 ) DIGITAL SEEKS LARGE SHARE OF SGI'S GRAPHICS MARKET SPACE...........6.2K by Alan Beck, editor in chief Digital Equipment Corp. is going head to head with Silicon Graphics for a piece of the high-end graphics market. HPCwire tours Digital's Proving Ground exhibit and talks with Digital Senior Engineer Charlie Crab about the company's goals. 8970 ) EVL'S VR TECHNOLOGY NOW AVAILABLE FROM PYRAMID SYSTEMS.............6.9K by Alan Beck, editor in chief Commercial products that offer a striking combination of immersive and interactive 3-D technology pioneered at the University of Illinois Electronic Visualization Lab (EVL) made a splash at SIGGRAPH 96. 8971 ) SGI COMMENTS ON THE FUTURE OF ITS WORKSTATIONS.......................5K by Alan Beck, editor in chief Stronger efforts from Digital and Windows NT to unseat Silicon Graphics from its perch overseeing the graphics and animation market. HPCwire talks with Silicon Graphics VP of Marketing Daniel Vivoli about the future of his company's graphic workstation line and the perceived threat of PCs. 8972 ) PARTICLE SYSTEMS SIMULATION TO BE USED FOR CROWD CONTROL...........4.7K by Alan Beck, editor in chief HPCwire talks with ArSciMed President and CEO Eyal Cohen about using real- time simulation and visualization technologies to develop pragmatic approaches to crowd control. IN BRIEF 8973 ) Microsoft NT Flexes Its Muscles at SIGGRAPH 96.....................4.3K 8974 ) Fore Systems Builds Advanced SIGGRAPH 96 Intranet..................2.8K 8975 ) Silicon Graphics Unveils Real Time Digital Film Resolution.........1.3K 8976 ) Mitsubishi Graphics Memory Products Power REAL 3D Engine...........2.6K 8977 ) Warner Digital Studios Installs Eight Discreet Logic Inc. Systems..2.5K 8978 ) Industrial Light & Magic Opts for Avid Media Illusion Solution.....2.2K 8979 ) n-Vision Demonstrates VR Display Systems for Astronaut Training....2.4K 8980 ) Immersion I-FORCE Enables Users to Feel Information................1.5K 8981 ) Product Announcements: A Digest of Product Releases from the Show...14K 8982 ) Softimage and Digital Sponsor Student Animation Contest............3.2K ============================================================================== FEATURES ===================================================================== 8983 ) DEC'S LATEST ALPHA SERVERS: WHO NEEDS MULTIPROCESSING?.............3.8K News Analysis by Norris Parker Smith, editor at large DEC is introducing new uniprocessor servers with the latest 300 MHz version of the Alpha chip. Performance is 2X its predecessor, and prices are dropping. Especially for Windows NT users, why bother with multiprocessor servers? 8984 ) THREE QUESTIONS ABOUT MAINFRAMES: IBM STRIKES BACK.................8.1K Commentary by Norris Parker Smith, editor at large IBM's S/390 mainframes have shown remarkable resilience while looking more and more like Unix servers. A recent court decision removes the dread hands of the lawyers. What blue sleight-of-hand will take place next? SCIENCE & ENGINEERING NEWS 8985 ) COSMIC VOYAGE: COMPUTING THE UNIVERSE..............................5.2K Honored at SIGGRAPH 96, the simulations in NCSA's Cosmic Voyage IMAX movie generated over 150 gigabytes of raw data; visualization technology transformed that data into 100 gigabytes of meaningful and realistic high-resolution images. 8986 ) COMPUTER MODELING MAY LEAD TO UNDERSTANDING OF MENTAL ILLNESS......1.9K Australian scientists are using a supercomputer to emulate the human brain as they search for better ways to treat mental illness. 8987 ) THE INNER LIFE OF RUST: ELECTRON TRANSFER AT WATER-METAL INTERFACE.6.3K by Michael Schneider, Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center The surprising results of Gregory Voth's computations at PSC show that quantum methods are required to accurately simulate electron transfer in water. COMMERCIAL NEWS 8988 ) CBIS BUILDS STATE-OF-THE-ART DATA CENTER FOR BILLING SERVICES......3.6K The new $80 million facility can process over one billion instructions per second, can store nearly 7 trillion bytes of on-line data on disk, 50 trillion in its robotic tape silos, and over 600 trillion in its tape library. 8989 ) SNAP-ON INC. REPLACES LEGACY MAINFRAME WITH CLIENT/SERVER SOLUTION...5K Snap-on's new Hewlett-Packard system, currently installed at seven of the company's 37 North American sites, integrates supply chain, order processing and distribution for improved competitiveness 8990 ) CASE CORP. SELECTS CMS FOR PRODUCT DATA MANAGEMENT.................2.4K Agricultural equipment manufacturer CASE Corp. plans to use Workgroup Technology's CMS product data management software and services, worth more than $1.5 million, to manage all information related to product lifecycles. QUOTE OF THE WEEK ============================================================ 8971 ) "The mistake people are making is falling into the same old trap of using simple, primitive benchmark measures to make a case that two things perform the same or can do the same problem. And it's just the wrong way to approach it." -- Daniel Vivoli, Silicon Graphics VP of Marketing, on NT vs. SGI __________________________INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHTS______________________________ | | | 6886 ) SunSoft Is Seeking Development Products Group Project Leader | | 7162 ) Recruiting?? Don't Miss HPCwire's Special CAREER TRACK Supplement! | | 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 ================================================================== 8991 ) ARIS Corp. Purchases Cray Solutions Software Consulting Group....2.1K 8992 ) HP Will Begin Shipment of MPE/iX 5.5 Operating System this Month.3.1K 8993 ) Seymour Cray Prepares to Build Computers Again.....................1K 8994 ) Digital Introduces High-End Storage Arrays for Open Systems......2.8K 8995 ) Sequent Ships NUMA-Q System to Oracle............................1.7K 8996 ) Data General Will Share NUMALiiNE Technology with Unisys.........3.4K 8997 ) Compaq Bets on Distributed Computing, Forms Workstation Division.2.7K 8998 ) Digital's New AlphaStation Runs at 15/19.5 SPECint95/fp95........2.2K 8999 ) SCO UnixWare 2.1 Achieves Throughput of 6253.32 tpmC.............4.7K 10004 ) Hewlett-Packard/Convex System to Process West Cameron Survey.....1.3K 10005 ) Banctec and Tandem Market Item Processing Solution to China......2.9K 10006 ) Report Urges Cooperation Between Computer Science & Seismology...1.6K 10007 ) Kobe University Will House Japan's Largest Fibre Channel Network...3K 10008 ) SCO UnixWare 2.1 Achieves Throughput of 6253.32 tpmC.............4.7K 10009 ) Fairfield Picks Concurrent for Mobile Seismic Data Acquisition...1.3K 10010 ) Swiss Bank Corporation Places $2.9M Order for Auspex NetServer...1.4K 10011 ) U.S. Navy Hires Essex to Develop Radar Focusing Techniques.......0.9K SHORT TAKES 10012 ) Product Watch: Motorola Coldfire MCF5102. STB 64-bit Monitor....16.3K CLARiiON Introduces High Performance RAID 3 Arrays 10013 ) Financial Watch: S&P Affirms Double-B-Plus Rating for SGI........7.4K MicroModule Private Placement Earns $10M 10014 ) Corporate Liaisons: Cisco Systems Acquires Nashoba Networks.......13K Tandem-Bea Partnership Focuses on OLTP Clusters HP, EMC, Oracle and the HP9000 10015 ) People & Promotions: Phillip Samper Joins Scitex Corp. Board.....5.1K New CIO at ANSI. Ira Goldstein Named HP ITO JOB BANK ===================================================================== 667 ) Employment Opportunities...........................................3.5K From: Lockheed Martin, IBM Corp., Arctic Region Supercomputing Center SunSoft, Tera Computer, ORTECH, Nichols Research, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, NEC European Supercomputer Systems 604 ) Job Bank Rates and Regulations.................................... 1.2K 7162 ) Career Track Supplement Information................................1.0K CONFERENCES ================================================================== 2888 ) Calendar of Upcoming HPC Events (Updated Aug. 8 ).................11K 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 | |____________________________________________________________________________| -------------------- * -------------------- To date HPCwire has delivered 1,455,403 articles to HPC professionals worldwide *** LAST ISSUE'S MOST REQUESTED ITEMS *** 8929 ) IBM ADOPTS AZTEC MODE FOR 3-TFLOPS DOE PROJECT..................11.1K 8928 ) NEC CORP. ADDRESSES CRAY'S ACCUSATIONS OF DUMPING................5.4K 8933 ) ESPRIT PROJECT EXPLORES PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF NEW TOOLS.......2.2K 8930 ) IN PURSUIT OF THE TERA-OP CHIP: CNN PARADIGM PLAYS LEAD ROLE.....7.5K 10016) TOP 20 MOST REQUESTED ARTICLES FROM LAST WEEK'S HPCwire..........1.9K ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~