🚀 go-pugleaf

This probably belongs in a .politics newsgroup, but since it involves super
computing and started here, I'm puting it here...

In article <40173@skye.dcs.ed.ac.uk> gvw@epcc.ed.ac.uk (Greg Wilson) writes:
>In article <1992Jul28.152513.27457@athena.mit.edu>, solman@athena.mit.edu (Jason W Solinsky) writes:
>> ....I know the USA will
>> make sure that its laws (both written and in the works) prevent its profitable
>> sale in the US. I'm not unhappy about that, BTW. In fact I rather like it...
>                  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>> Jason W. Solinsky
>
>Aah, America, the home of free enterprise ... 


Hold on a minute.  As easy as it would be for me to do flag waving about
American jobs and so forth (which I believe in), I believe there's a logical 
reason for the U.S. government to mandate U.S. manufactured supercomputers
for many installations.

Namely this;  A very large number of supercomputers purchased by the govt.
are for military or security operations (note, I don't *know* this, but I'd
say it's a pretty safe bet).  Relying on a foreign power for support, parts,
maintenance, etc. of a component that would be critical in wartime would be
extremely dangerous.

Now i hardly expect we will ever go to war with Japan, but lines of 
comunication and shipping capabilities could be seriously hampered if we
were at war with _anyone_.

Imagine if the JEWC operations center, which was of critical importance
during "Desert Storm" had as its main computer equipment developed, built,
and maintained from Iraq.  Get the picture?  We (the U.S.), were in fact
aided in our war effort by U.S. computer parts (printers) which had been
shipped to Iraq and covertly modified for just such an occurence.

Yes, I work for a U.S. manufacturer of supercomputers, so my opinion is no
doubt biased, but the above arguement still has merit, IMHO.

jgardner
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