Stardent Computer Inc – the result of the merger of rival graphics mini-supercomputer vendors Ardent Computer and Stellar Inc – is planning an assault on the mainstream workstation market with new low-end graphics products due for introduction by the middle of next year. Bill Poduska, president and chief executive of Stardent, in the UK for the launch over here of the company’s new Stardent 3000 graphics supercomputer (CI No 1,317), revealed that the forthcoming mid-range systems would incorporate a fair amount of Intel technology, including the 80860 processor, which will probably be used as a vector processing unit alongside a MIPS RISC chip for scalar processing. Poduska also promised systems offering the same level of performance as the 3000 (said to be 128 MIPS and 192 MFLOPS in top-end, four processor configurations) for a third to half price, and new systems with twice the performance for the same price in 1990. The Stardent line now consists of the 1000 Series (previously Stellar’s GS1000), 1500 (Ardent’s Titan 2), and the 2000 and 2500 Series (previously the GS2000 and GS2500 from Stellar). The new 3000 is Ardent’s successor to the Titan 2, but Poduska said that the company was working hard to eliminate the separate lineages. Stardent also announced availability of Stellar’s Application Visualisation System software right across its lines, and said that it was in negotiation with major vendors interested in licensing it for other boxes. The UK arm of Stardent, in Guildford, Surrey, said it had seen a good response to the merger, and received nine orders worth UKP1m since it broke in September.
