jp@Apple.COM (John Peterson) (05/05/90)
While we're on the subject of supercomputer companies going under, does anybody know what happened to the Evans and Sutherland project? I recall seeing a couple tiny articles in trade rags "announcing" it, but nothing substantial. One rumor indicated that after several years and millions of dollars, they couldn't even get a working prototype. Anybody know the real story? Thanks, jp
piziali@convex.com (Andy Piziali) (05/07/90)
In article <40744@apple.Apple.COM> jp@Apple.COM (John Peterson) writes:
While we're on the subject of supercomputer companies going under,
does anybody know what happened to the Evans and Sutherland project?
I recall seeing a couple tiny articles in trade rags "announcing" it,
but nothing substantial. One rumor indicated that after several years
and millions of dollars, they couldn't even get a working prototype.
Anybody know the real story?
The Evans and Sutherland supercomputer, the ES-1, was designed, built, and
shipped. Evans and Sutherland Computer Corporation cancelled the project on
November 12, 1989. As with the ETA saga, the account of the cancellation of
the ES-1 varies with former employee to former employee.
As a former member of the ESCD computer architecture group, my opinion is that
the project was cancelled because the corporate officer behind the project,
founder and former president and chairman of the board Dave Evans, was asked to
resign from his position in the company and the vacuum was filled by a member
of the "old guard" who did not approve of Evans and Sutherland venturing into
the risky business of supercomputing. When the opportunity presented itself to
cancel the project, the 1990 budget review, the new corporate president
garnered sufficient support from the board of directors to stop product
development.
We spent approximately thirty five million dollars between 1986 and 1989, had
two ES-1/100 beta systems (single "P", 16 computational units) in the field,
and three other systems up and running in house.
--
piziali@convex.com (Andrew J. Piziali)sbf10@uts.amdahl.com (Samuel Fuller) (05/08/90)
In article <40744@apple.Apple.COM> jp@Apple.COM (John Peterson) writes: >While we're on the subject of supercomputer companies going under, >does anybody know what happened to the Evans and Sutherland project? >I recall seeing a couple tiny articles in trade rags "announcing" it, >but nothing substantial. One rumor indicated that after several years >and millions of dollars, they couldn't even get a working prototype. > >Anybody know the real story? > >Thanks, >jp I don't know the whole or the real story but I do know that BYU has an ES1 working in their Electrical and Computer Engineering Dept. It was described to me as a good 'beta' machine with lots of spare parts. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sam Fuller / Amdahl System Performance Architecture I speak for myself, from the brown hills of San Jose. UUCP: {ames,decwrl,uunet}!amdahl!sbf10 | USPS: 1250 E. Arques Ave (M/S 139) INTERNET: sbf10@amdahl.com | P.O. Box 3470 PHONE: (408) 746-8927 | Sunnyvale, CA 94088-3470 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
grunwald@foobar.colorado.edu (Dirk Grunwald) (05/08/90)
We got one as well, and it's reasonably stable. The hardware is more stable than the Mach port. We recently got a 2nd one, I think, at a fantastic price. E&S Computers is out of buisness as far as I know. They attempted to spin off the computer division & couldn't. So, it's folded.