nbm@castle.ed.ac.uk (N MacDonald) (07/30/90)
I'm looking for information on the recent demise of Multiflow. The latest information I have is that discussions were proceeding with Intel on a possible deal on Multiflow's compiler technology, although Multiflow itself was unlikely to survive. Did this deal ever come to fruition? If not, what has become of former Multiflow personnel? Is work on the compiler technology going on elsewhere or has it died with Multiflow? What were the reasons for the company's failure in the first place? I'd also be interested in *any* information about Cydrome, which I believe is another failed VLIW machine manufacturer. Neil. ______________________________________________________________________________ Neil MacDonald <nbm@uk.ac.ed.castle> Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre
liu@gmdtub.UUCP (08/01/90)
In article <9903@hubcap.clemson.edu> nbm@castle.ed.ac.uk (N MacDonald) writes: >I'm looking for information on the recent demise of Multiflow. > On page 376 of the Proc. of the 17th Ann. Intern. Symp. on Computer Architecture, which was hold in May this year, one can see the name of one of the Multiflow's founders (as a panel member) as follows: Joseph A. Fisher, Multiflow Computer, Inc. When did this firm fold ?
mrs2@gte.com (Mark Scherfling) (08/02/90)
In article <9946@hubcap.clemson.edu> liu@gmdtub.UUCP writes: > In article <9903@hubcap.clemson.edu> nbm@castle.ed.ac.uk (N MacDonald) writes: > >I'm looking for information on the recent demise of Multiflow. > > > > On page 376 of the Proc. of the 17th Ann. Intern. Symp. on Computer > Architecture, which was hold in May this year, one can see the name > of one of the Multiflow's founders (as a panel member) as follows: > > Joseph A. Fisher, Multiflow Computer, Inc. > > When did this firm fold ? Yes. After Digital backed out of a $10M technology deal, Multiflow closed their doors the next day. Many companies are now picking up Multiflow's technology for bargain basement prices (including DEC). See the July 9 issue of Digital Review for more information regarding DEC's dealings here. Also, see the short article (pg 14) in SuperComputing Review (July 1990) for information on where the Multiflow people have now gone. Josh Fisher is now working for HP/Apollo. For those who may not have heard, Bell Atlantic, which also owns Sorbus, has taken over hardware support for the existing Multiflow customer base. We own (luckily leased) a Trace 14/300 and have not regretted our decision. However, in benchmarking the current class of super-workstations (IBM 6000, SGI 340, HP DN1000,Stardent Titan ???) we are finding our class of programs (mixed scalar and vector) running faster on these machines than on the Multiflow. I'm amazed at the pace of technology. I don't think that the demise of Multiflow is the end of VLIW (very long instruction word) architecture. With so many companies hiring ex-Multiflow compiler gurus, they recognize that faster hardware along isn't going to cut it forever. IBM's RS6000 uses a KLIW (kinda long instruction word) architecture. I'm sure we'll see more to come. I'm disappointed that Multiflow won't be around to see the children it spawned. -- Mark Scherfling GTE Labs