🚀 go-pugleaf

Having lost all hope of ever being able to get one, I stopped reading
about the "minisupercomputers".  Now I find that I am expected to know
something about them.  I am not so foolish as to believe that I can
get unbiased and authoratative information as a result of this
request.  (Just look at some of the groups I have cross posted to. :-)
But I hope I can get some useful information out of it.

Let me make the request a little more specific.  We are not looking
for a machine to take over our load of general purpose computing
(e.g., replace our vax) nor are we looking for a workstation (graphic
or otherwise).  What we need is some thing that will fly when doing
numerical computation and simulations etc.

We would strongly prefer something with a 4.3BSD Unix-like operating
system.  It must have a good optimizing fortran compiler.  (I know,
but the users are physicists and chemists of a certain age and they
have always programed in fortran.)

To make things even more definite, suppose the total system cost must
be in the range of $500,000 to $1,000,000.  The hardware should not be
at the top of its migration path -- we should be able to add
processors, memory, disk, etc. to make it bigger and better in the
future.

Ok folks, what is today's best buy?

Send mail and I will summarize any useful stuff that I get.

-- 
Dan Schlitt                        Manager, Science Division Computer Facility
dan@ccnysci                        City College of New York
dan@ccnysci.bitnet                 New York, NY 10031
                                   (212)690-6868