🚀 go-pugleaf

October 15, 1992 - Dr. Gordon Bell - Where have all the Massively 
Parallel Processing Companies Gone? Who's Next? andWhy?

This month the PARALLEL Processing Connection is honored to welcome 
Dr. Gordon Bell to its platform. Gordon is best known as the chief architect 
of the world famous VAX computer.

Though all of us 'know' that sequential computing ala Von Neuman is 
passe', it does seem to be the MPP companies whose destiny is in question! 
We've asked Gordon Bell to examine the issue of why that is so and 
perhaps even conjecture on the future of the present cadre of companies. Is 
more and bigger ala megaflops to gigaflops and terraflops truly better for 
anyone and anything other than Grand Challenge problems? Doesn't cost-
effectiveness American style mean the economy of scale that would derive 
from thousands of commodity processors operating concurrently? Doesn't 
it also mean a large community of developers writing software for MPP 
machines? And how can commercial users and developers hope to access 
the field as long as the prices of machines and development systems remain 
in the stratosphere? These are some of the vexing questions we've asked 
Gordon Bell to address and we certainly expect a very rewarding evening.

The meeting will take place at 7:30PM in Bldg 5 of the Mountain View 
campus of Silicon Graphics. Exit 101 at Shoreline Blvd, north .7 of a mile 
to Amphitheater Drive, right turn there into the complex. Please note that 
this is a one time only change in date and place of our meeting.

Please be prompt; we expect a capacity attendance; don't be left out or left 
standing. There is an $11 fee for non-members and members will be 
admitted free.

-- 
B. Mitchell Loebel                                      parallel@netcom.COM
PARALLEL Processing Connection                                 408-732-9869