Newsgroups: comp.parallel,comp.sys.super From: eugene@sally.nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya) Reply-To: eugene@george.arc.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya) Subject: [l/m 5/28/98] Special post Call comp.parallel (27/28) FAQ Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA Date: 27 Jul 1998 12:03:17 GMT Message-ID: <6phqa5$5ae$1@sun500.nas.nasa.gov> Archive-Name: superpar-faq Last-modified: 4 Mar 1998 27 Special post 28 Dedications 2 Introduction and Table of Contents and justification 4 Comp.parallel news group history 6 parlib 8 comp.parallel group dynamics 10 Related news groups, archives and references 12 14 16 18 Supercomputing and Crayisms 20 IBM and Amdahl 22 Grand challenges and HPCC 24 Suggested (required) readings 26 Dead computer architecture society Special Call ------------ What's the special call? I am thinking about it. It's my space. It can be your's, too. The special call is intended to be a special call for long-term, voluntary assistance. 1) I am the publications and software reviewer for a quarterly journal. Do you want to express your opinion in print? It's your chance to add another print publication to your resume or C.V. Ask me for a book or piece of scientific software, or come up with one of your own. Ask me first. Reviews get the widest possible latitudes to express your opinions. 2-3 printed pages. Let's talk. 2) The Computer Museum. Not "a" computer museum, The Computer Museum. The original started in Boston by Dr. Gwen Bell largely as a off shoot of DEC. That Museum is reaching its display limitations. What exists in the flats of Silicon Valley is The Computer Museum's History Center. This is a planned facility. Right now Visible Storage exists at Moffett Field. The Computer Museum, aka. TCM, has perhaps the greatest collection of old historic artifacts, documentation, books, memoribilia. In the past they haev sponsered such activities like The Computer Bowl (the West Coast are the reigning winners: as of 1997). What do they have? Many things. Examples of most of the machines designed by Seymour Cray. A working German Enigma. Many minisupers. Mainframes. Workstations. Advertising. Manuals. Do most of these work? Alas no. They run what they can. What don't they need? PCs (need I say more?). How can I help? The Museum is always looking for old collectables. Foreign computers are of great interest (NEC's chairman donated one of their first machines from the late 1950s). The Museum needs these to set the "arrogant" Americans straight. Do you know where there is a CDC 3xxx series? Here's a place to store it. Ask them (or me). Reference: www.tcm.org Examples of what the museum already has: Cray-1, Cray-2, Cray-3 parts. Cray's Naval gun director, 160A, 6600, 7600 Early 1957-8 NEC machine SAGE LINC Stretch IBM 360/370/91,195, etc. DDP-116 PDP-1, ... PDP-11, DEC-20, VAX (several) Burroughs ILLIAC IV Control Units and several Processing Units Xerox Alto, Star, other D machines Multiflow Trace Cydrome Cydra 5 KSR-1 Intel iPSC/1 TMC CM-1, CM-2, CM-5 E&S ES-1, PS-1, LDS FrankenRAID Johnniac WISC Hollerith Machine reproduction Hillis' Tic-tac-toe computer (in Boston) A host of the usual PCs, Lisas, Macs, Apple-1, etc. Other Univac, Burroughs, etc. machines The first laser printer Many of the other usual and unusual peripherals: mice, light pens, light guns, card readers, impact printers, etc. An incredible library The Museum has permanent working exchange agreements with other museums like the Smithsonian. At this time, foreign nationals require some prior approval: ask in advance, the storage facility is on Federal land. Can you visit? Sure. One is in Boston, the other is in the Silicon Valley. There are monthly seminars coordinated by Bay Area Computer History Perspectives (co-run by Peter Nerkse at SUN, posted to ba.seminars and cross-posted to other relevant groups). Articles to bigrigg+parallel@cs.cmu.edu (Administrative: bigrigg@cs.cmu.edu) Archive: http://www.hensa.ac.uk/parallel/internet/usenet/comp.parallel