eugene@eos.arc.nasa.gov (Eugene Miya) (05/06/89)
This is like Intl. Conf. on Supercomputers #4 and 3rd
exhibition.
The advanced program for this conference appeared about 1 month
ago, someone remarked, "Late." This Conference is gaining a notorious
reputation. The last time it was held at Santa Clara Convention Center
there was a noted "punch-out" between the Kartashevs and several workers.
This time the advanced program had very few exhibitors and very glossy
sessions and papers. (Will scan Horst Simon's proceedings when I get
a chance [OCR scan].) The facility is very quiet. The papers, well,
you will see for yourself. The exhibition had something like 50
booths 2 years ago, now has 9? maybe 8. The largest is the NEC SX-X
which has a model! There is an interesting conduit between the
extended memory and other parts of the system sort of like the initial
"bar" which went between early X-MPs and SSDs [sort of out of place
in appearance]. A few more fact sheets on disk systems, oh, interesting
last line on a sign for software: "emacs -- Dr. Richard Staleman"
they need to do some homework. ;)
Also there (left side) AMT with a couple of DAPs, SuperTek with an S-1,
several book and magazine vendors (Supercomp Review, Elsevier), the
people associated with Cogent and Linda, and lastly (that's how
small this was): IBM with their contest and a bunch of RTs
(they were demoing their chemistry and finite element software)
[their UniForum booth was 6 times larger]. The IBM chemistry stuff
was on first glance neat, but on playing with it, it got worse.
You have to know a mixture of MVS JCL and VMS DCL to use it and AIX
ran on the RT. Great way to overload your users (this is IBM running
this VAX now). They really have no graphics people.
Anyway, the mood was subdued. Just as companies are dropping like
flies, so must supercomputer conferences.
Longish signature follows "Type 'n' now"
Another gross generalization from
--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov
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