H P C w i r e The Text-on-Demand E-zine for High Performance Computing *** August 22, 1997: Vol. 6, No. 33 *** This Week's Table of Contents Represents 279 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 -------------------- * -------------------- [ ] 70383) Cray and PGI Release HPF_CRAFT for CRAY T3E with PGHPF 2.3; New NAS Benchmark results show PGHPF outperforming hand-coded MPI in some cases ______________________________ IN THIS ISSUE _______________________________ | | | [ ] 11776) FEATURES: CRAY WELCOMES COMM DEPT ANTI-DUMPING FINDINGS | | [ ] 11777) SCIENCE NEWS: BREAKTHROUGH IN MATRIX PROCESSING REPORTED | | [ ] 11784) COMMERCIAL NEWS: GARTNER GROUP SEES GBPS INET BY 2002 | | [ ] 11788) NEWS BRIEFS: HP INTROS ARCHITECTURE FOR UNIX/NT INTEROP | |____________________________________________________________________________| [ ] 70384) SC97: High Performance Networking and Computing Has Highest Paper Submission Rate in Conference Series History FEATURES ===================================================================== [ ] 11773 ) INTEL DONATES $85M FOR PARALLELISM AT 12 US UNIVERSITIES.....13.4K Reported by Norris Parker Smith, editor at large Intel is donating $85 million for projects, mostly emphasizing parallelism, at 12 US universities. Promotion of the Wintel standard is a subtext in this 3-year drama. Plans at the University of California at Berkeley, one of the participants, are described as part of a broad sketch of this diverse initiative. [ ] 11774 ) MARIO GERLA OFFERS PERSPECTIVES ON HIGH-END NETWORKING........6.2K by Alan Beck, vice-president of publications, TGC To obtain a broader view of high-end networking, HPCwire interviewed one of the field's most prominent researchers and authors on topics including major trends, critical current issues and competing technologies. [ ] 11775 ) 512-NODE CRAY T3E AT NERSC: BRISK RAMP-UP & CHECKPOINTING.....6.8K Commentary by Norris Parker Smith, editor at large Is the SGI/Cray T3E ready at last for prime time? A 512-processor implementation at NERSC in Berkeley has, so far, demonstrated a commendably short ramp-up time. NERSC and Cray marked up a long-sought goal for big parallel systems: checkpoint-based start and restart without data loss. [ ] 11776 ) CRAY WELCOMES COMMERCE DEPT FINDINGS IN ANTIDUMPING SUIT......6.2K Cray Research, the supercomputing subsidiary of SGI welcomed decisions handed down yesterday in the Court of International Trade and today at the U.S. Department of Commerce that affirm Cray's claims in an antidumping complaint against the Japanese manufacturers of vector supercomputers. SCIENCE & ENGINEERING NEWS [ ] 11777 ) DEC/MULTIPATH REPORT BREAKTHROUGH IN MATRIX PROCESSING........3.7K Digital Equipment and Multipath have joined forces to provide for a major aeronautics client a matrix processing solution not previously run practically on a general purpose high performance UNIX SMP server priced under $1 million. [ ] 11778 ) PAL-2 COMPUTER MAY DRAMATICALLY IMPROVE IMAGE PROCESSING......3.9K A huge image processing task, such as matching millions of finger prints in a national database -- that today takes an hour -- will supposedly take 60 seconds with PAL-2. Medical image processing will also take place at higher speeds with greater clarity and accuracy. [ ] 11779 ) CAN INFORMATION STORAGE BE TAKEN TO THE MOLECULAR LEVEL?........3K Notre Dame researchers are experimenting with an approach called Quantum- dot cellular automata (QCA). QCA uses an entity known as the "quantum dot," that can be arranged into cells lined up end to end to form "binary wires" or arrayed to form switches and various computer logic devices. [ ] 11780 ) UNDERSTANDING THE EARTH, GETTING READY FOR THE BIG ONE..........6K by Michael Schneider, senior science writer, PSC Using Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center's Cray T3D & T3E, researchers at Carnegie Mellon have carried out the most detailed simulations yet on seismic response in the San Fernando Valley. [ ] 11781 ) INDIANA UNIVERSITY BEGINS MAJOR VIRTUAL REALITY INITIATIVE....5.4K Indiana University has just announced a major new VR initiative funded by the National Science Foundation and the Univ. Later this month, it will complete the installation of a CAVE at IU Bloomington and an ImmersaDesk at Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis. [ ] 11782 ) ENGINEERS USE CRAY SUPERCOMPUTERS TO TEST SUPERSONIC CAR......5.6K Engineers are using supercomputers supplied by Cray Research to test the stability of a jet-propelled car designed to travel at the speed of sound. [ ] 11783 ) BASICONCEPTS DVPS PROCESSOR PROGRAMMED IN HUMAN LANGUAGE......2.9K The FL1000 processor design uses the FL1000 Application Expert-a software-development environment that streamlines the creation of fuzzy membership functions and rules. A real-time hardware emulator is due out in the Q3, and working silicon devices are expected during quarter four. COMMERCIAL NEWS [ ] 11784 ) GARTNER GROUP EXPECTS INTERNET TO REACH GBPS SPEEDS BY 2002...4.3K Gartner Group predicts that by the year 2002, the top 20 percent U.S. metropolitan markets will have direct gigaPOP access. With this scalability, businesses will be able to select access methods based on price and performance for each location. [ ] 11785 ) SUN, SGI TARGET DATA-CNTR MKT WITH CLUSTERED UNIX SERVERS.....3.1K Both companies are leveraging technology acquired separately from Cray Research Inc. to offer corporate customers large symmetric multiprocessing servers that can be clustered to compete with big iron from IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Digital Equipment Corp. [ ] 11786 ) STORAGE ROLE EXPANDS FOR DATA WAREHOUSES......................4.3K Users and analysts agree that capacity, speed, flexibility, security and software tools are all factors in choosing the right disk system for a data warehouse. Vendors are responding with more specialized disk arrays with microcode optimized for various vendor databases. [ ] 11787 ) MULTIFUNCTION SMART CARD USAGE ON THE RISE....................4.1K Smart cards are quickly becoming a popular payment option in the banking industry as well as showing promise for applications such as electronic commerce, mobile communications and health care. QUOTE OF THE WEEK ============================================================ [ ] 11774 ) "If IP can achieve high switching performance comparable to ATM, and can deliver QoS at the same price as ATM, it will probably wipe out ATM (for high-bandwidth WAN)." -- Mario Gerla, professor, UCLA Computer Science Dept. __________________________INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHTS_________________________ [ ] 70385) Final Program for SECOND IEEE METADATA CONFERENCE Silver Spring, Maryland on September 16-17 [ ] 70386) MAXSTRAT's Gen5 and NEC's SX-4 system together dramatically increase seismic data accuracy and reduce processing lead time. [ ] 70387) VISUAL NUMERICS IMSL Distributed Network Fortran Library Provides High Performance Mathematics for Distributed Systems [ ] 70388) A joint Mass Storage Conference; 6th NASA Goddard Space Flight Ctr Conference & the 15th IEEE Symposium on Mass Storage [ ] 70389) Qualcomm Announces Worldwide Availability Of Eudora Worldmail Server NEWS BRIEFS ================================================================== [ ] 11788 ) HP Intros Architecture for UNIX/NT Interoperability...........2.5K [ ] 11789 ) Sandia Uses Mercury Systems for Advanced Radar Research.........3K [ ] 11790 ) Aeroports de Paris Deploys ILOG-Based Management System.........2K [ ] 11791 ) Carnegie Mellon to Receive $5.9M Intel Grant..................2.8K [ ] 11792 ) IDC Forecasts Sys Support Services Mkt Through 2001...........2.5K [ ] 11793 ) DISA Approves HP-UX OS Compliant with DII COE.................1.9K [ ] 11794 ) Bay Networks Posts Network Throughput Benchmark.................2K [ ] 11795 ) Sun Starfire Posts TPC-D Benchmark............................1.5K [ ] 11796 ) Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise 11.5 Posts Benchmark........1.8K [ ] 11797 ) Unisys Announces Record Windows NT TPC-C Results..............2.3K [ ] 11798 ) Maplin Chooses Pick D3 as IT System Backbone..................1.8K [ ] 11799 ) Electronics Company Awards Avant! $5 Million Order............2.5K [ ] 11800 ) Asensio & Co. Claims Avant! is Losing Market Share..............3K [ ] 11801 ) Cincom Builds New Data Center Using Amdahl Server.............2.5K [ ] 11802 ) COM DEV, Newbridge Networks Launch SpaceBridge Corp...........2.5K [ ] 11803 ) Fore, USC ETC Team Beats Hackers' Challenge...................2.7K [ ] 11804 ) IDC Predicts Growth for India's IT Market.....................2.3K [ ] 11805 ) NEC Installs Supercomputer System at Aerospace Center.........0.9K [ ] 11806 ) QUALCOMM, GMCR Implement PeopleSoft's ERO Solutions...........1.8K [ ] 11807 ) PC Innovation Chooses Wyle to Provide DEC's Products..........1.8K SHORT TAKES [ ] 11808 ) Product Watch: SCO Releases SVR5 UNIX Kernel.................48.3K SGI Offers New Version of OpenGL. IBM Launches E-Commerce Server. [ ] 11809 ) Financial Update: HP Sales Up, Income Below Forecasts.........8.6K Dell Posts Record Q2. Newbridge Networks Reports on Q1. [ ] 11810 ) Corporate Liaisons: Sun/Oracle Target Wkgrp DB Market........16.9K HP & SGI Sign Agreement. Sequent & BEA in Dist Pact. [ ] 11811 ) People and Positions: AT&T Labs Pres Assumes CTO Role.........5.9K SGI Names Irving Mgr Scot/Irish Ops. Tandem Appts Coker VP, Finance. JOB BANK ===================================================================== [ ] 667 ) Employment Opportunities From: Fermilab, Lawrence Berkeley, Tera, MIT, Raytheon E-Systems, Hewlett Packard, University of Michigan, IBM Corp, Pallas................................................................5K [ ] 604 ) Job Bank Rates and Regulations.................................1.22K CONFERENCES ================================================================== [ ] 2888 ) Calendar of Upcoming HPC Events (Updated 08.21.97).............9.5K HPCwire INFORMATION ========================================================== [ ] 670 ) Masthead........................................................2.2K [ ] 601 ) Subscriptions & Removals........................................2.6K [ ] 602 ) Submitting Letters & Articles...................................1.6K [ ] 950 ) Index of Back Issues.............................................14K 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) MAXSTRAT | | [ ] 934) HP/Convex Tech. Center [ ] 930) HNSX Supercomputers | | [ ] 909) Fujitsu [ ] 902) IBM Corp. | | [ ] 937) Digital Equipment [ ] 932) Portland Group | | [ ] 938) Visual Numerics* [ ] 940) Eudora | | [ ] 941) HAL Computers [ ] 942) Sun Microsystems | | [ ] 921) Silicon Graphics/Cray Research [ ] 943) Northrop Grumman | | [ ] 944) Raytheon E-Systems | |__________________________________________________________________________| Firms marked with an * have updated their info within the last 30 days. -------------------- * -------------------- This year, HPCwire proudly celebrates its fifth consecutive year of service to the scientific, academic, and industrial communities: 1992-1997. To date HPCwire has delivered 1,798,010 articles and product announcements to HPC professionals worldwide. *** LAST ISSUE'S MOST REQUESTED ITEMS *** [ ] 11737) UNIX VENDORS JOIN FORCES TO COMBAT WINDOWS NT..................4K [ ] 11733) INTEL FACES CHALLENGES IN MANUFACTURING PROCESS CHANGE.......4.7K [ ] 11727) HIGH-END NETWORKING: AN INTERVIEW WITH TOM DEFANTI...........9.4K [ ] 11726) SIGGRAPH: THROW OUT 'DA NOISE, BACK TO 'DA TEAPOTS...........9.9K [ ] 11812) TOP 20 MOST REQUESTED ARTICLES FROM LAST WEEK'S HPCwire......1.8K ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~