Newsgroups: comp.parallel
From: eugene@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: Massively Parallel "Pizza Box" really the ICE box
Organization: NASA Ames Res. Ctr. Mtn Vw CA 94035
Date: 5 Sep 1995 14:41:32 GMT
Message-ID: <42hnis$7gi@usenet.srv.cis.pitt.edu>

>>_Information Week_, 6/5/95, p. 100: "Massive Desktop Power."

>>This article describes the Desktop RealTime Engine rolled out on May 15 by 
>>Integrated Computing Engines of Cambridge, Mass., a MIT spinoff company.

Actually MIT Lincoln Labs.  Not quite the same.

>>It is a "briefcase-sized machine" containing 32 33-MHz or 64 40-MHz Super 
>>Harvard Architecture Computer ("Sharc") chips (Analog Devices ADSP-21060). 
>>The two versions are $50K and $99.5K respectively. The article quotes a cost
>>of $11.60/Mflop. The device communicates at 80 Mbps with an EISA PC front end

In article <40hhs3$246@shell2.best.com> rcarter@best.com (Russell Carter) writes:
>This price is ridiculous.  O(1) KFLOPS/$ is the best you can do, I'm sorry
>that your benchmarks lead you astray, perhaps memory bandwidth wasn't 
>considered?  Try $300/Mflop for an excellent goal.  Prove me wrong!

I have to agree with Russell on this one.

>>AT&T Bell Labs in Holmdel, N.J., has ordered one of the these systems, 
>>which are scheduled to ship Sept. 1. ...
>>Frankly, I've been hoping someone would mention this machine. If you have 
>>any additional information or any opinions about this company or its 

ICE was at SIGGRAPH with a little "demo model."  Read: MODEL.

ICE has not run the NAS parallel benchmarks and its not clear to me
whether they will.  My guess is that this box is for a signal processing
market/image processing market than a more general purpose market
(then you would expect to see Abingdon Cross Image Processing Benchmark
numbers).

While ICE gave out nice carrying cases/mailing boxes (I had my own),
I did not get clear info on the machine other than the marketing flyer
and the card of the Western Rep.  As I pointed out to him: manuals,
manuals, manuals.  ICE is on the net.

Actually, it was another interesting SIGGRAPH in "Who wasn't there" as
opposed to who was there.  I think the demo floor space had actually
shrunk a bit compared to other ones, but I don't have the numbers.
Attendance was the highest ever (a very good Conference, possibly the
best in five years).

And I won a couple of prizes.
Wow, maybe I won that Alpha they were giving away.
I wonder which clock rate they would give away?

