(07/06/89)
This is my first posting to this newsgroup (I wasn't aware of its
existence :-) ) and I need some help. Offhand, my guess is that
postings with the same questions that I have would already have
appeared several times here, and if someone has addressed these in
the past, I'd appreciate your re-posting them or sending me e-mail.
OK, first off I'm in an engg dept. and my knowledge of parallel
processors and parallel computing hardware, or of software that is
specifically designed to work with parallel processors is very limited.
Having said that, I'd like some recommendations along with prices, pros
and cons, features, sources of info, configurations, and any other
insights on the stuff that is available.
I realize that this is probably too broad a question, so let me try
and provide a few more specifics. The situation is that basically
some money will potentially become available for purchasing some
parallel processing eqpt (MAYBE upto $200K), and we have several people
in our dept. who are interested in using this eqpt for their research.
The catch of course is that no one is completely certain of HOW. My
guess is that most of the applications would be in the area of
numerical and discrete optimization algorithms, heuristic procedures
in production scheduling and distribution, and some limited
artificial intelligence applications. I must also mention that we have
ready access to a CRAY but even though this is OK for big time
number crunching, it doesn't provide the necessary control over the
execution of many algorithms.
Given this fuzzy background I'd appreciate ANY pointers.
Thanks,
JR.
********************************************
e-mail:
gunner1@pittvms.BITNET
gunner1@vms.cis.pittsburgh.edu
gunner1@unix.cis.pittsburgh.edu
********************************************
--
Steve Stevenson fpst@hubcap.clemson.edu
(aka D. E. Stevenson), steve@hubcap.clemson.edu
Department of Computer Science, comp.parallel
Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29634-1906 (803)656-5880.mabellboykin@calliope.encore.com (Joseph Boykin) (07/08/89)
In article <5928@hubcap.clemson.edu> you write: >I'd like some recommendations along with prices, pros >and cons, features, sources of info, configurations, and any other >insights on the stuff that is available. I doubt if you won't get a flood of responses, but if you don't, let me know and I can provide some of the info you're looking for. ---- Joe Boykin Encore Computer Corp Vice-Chair, IEEE Computer Societies' Technical Activities Board Internet: boykin@encore.com UUCP: encore!boykin
pbassett@harvard.harvard.edu (07/12/89)
I would recommend you talk to someone at BBN about their Butterfly computer systems. I don't know for sure who at BBN you should talk to but here is the main address of the subsidiary that makes the Butterly: BBN Advanced Computers Inc. 10 Fawcett St. Cambridge, MA 02138 (617) 873-6000 The Butterfly is a shared memory machine which in my opinion provides the programmer with a much easier and more general programming model than the hyper-cube based machines (NCUBE, Connection Machine etc) obviously some folks would disagree about this. I know the Butterfly has been used for a wide variety of purposes (most of them in R/D environments): computer network packet switching, circuit simulation, finite element analysis, factory automation/control, database applications, neural network simulation etc. The current machines are based based on 68020's with a custom VLSI switch network. Each node of the machine has a 68020, a 68xxx floating point chip, a 68xxx memory management unit, 4 Meg of memory and an interface to the switch network. The switch network provides uniform access time for every processor to every other processor's memory. The memory access time scales logarithmically with the size of the machine. The smallest system they normally sell is, I believe 8 or 16 processors. I know they have a smaller, portable 4 processor box which they use internally for software development, but I don't know if it is sold externally. The system can be expanded, (normally in 16 or 32 processor increments) up to either 128 or 256 processors. The operating system is CMU's MACH which is BSD UNIX compatible but was specifically designed to support multi-processors. I don't know anything about prices. Good luck. Paul Bassett
chaz@cse.ogc.edu (Charles L. (Chaz) Sliger) (07/24/89)
Try contacting Jim (JR) Raughton (703) 364-3588 NCUBE Route 1, Box 562 Delaplane, VA, 22025 Chaz