K312240@AEARN.BITNET (Klaus Kusche) (11/25/89)
Dear Mailing List:
The CAD/CAM/Robotics group in our institute asked me to put the
following question on this list:
Is there any transputer-based high-performance graphic workstation
which comes with all the software we need???
In more detail:
* The box should have a colour graphics performance and resolution
comparable to the top-end dedicated graphics workstations, that
is Apollo 10000, Silicon Graphics, Ardent, Stellar, ...
DEC 3540 is a little bit too slow, top-end Evans&Sutherland, Pixar
or Alliant is a little bit too fast (i.e. expensive).
Of course, the floating-point performance should also be in that
class.
* The box should be a Unix (or Unix lookalike) workstation in itself
(including TCP-IP Ethernet connection!), or it should be a backend
to be integrated in such a workstation.
* The languages must include ANSI C and VAX (or similar) FORTRAN,
the central issue as far as graphics is concerned is
*** an implementation of Phigs ***
(absolutely necessary!!!)
Phigs+, GKS-3D, Xwindows and PEX (Phigs for Xwindows) would also
be fine...
* The box (and software!) should be as stable, as reliable and as easy
to run as a VAX (i.e. turn it on and never worry about it again...).
They just want to *use* that thing for their CAD/CAM applications,
they don't want to do research in the area of parallel graphics!
* Ah, yes, and the solution is of course expected to be cheaper than
any solution with the traditional graphic workstations...
To my opinion, the performance goal should be trivial to meet, the
cost should also not present a problem, but I've never heard of
any of the graphic software packages they want on transputers, and
according to my experience, transputer software is not yet as
perfect and stable as they want it to be...
However, I'm not aware of recent developments of Meiko and specialized
transputer graphics companies, so I still hope that such things exist!
If you could forward this mail (in print if necessary) to any company
which you think could meet the specifications (or send me that
company's address), I would be eternally grateful.
Come on, let's show our CAD/CAM group that transputers *are* indeed
useful for practical applications!!!
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* Klaus Kusche *
* Research Institute for Symbolic Computation *
* Johannes Kepler University Tel: +43 7236 3231 67 *
* A-4040 Linz Telex: (Austria) 22323 uni li a *
* Austria (Europe) Fax: +43 7236 3231 30 *
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* Bitnet: K312240@AEARN *
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* Janet: k312240@earn.aearn or k312240%aearn@earn-relay *
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