Hewlett-Packard Co reckons its new HP9000 Model 835ASW, launched Monday, is the first general-purpose superworkstation that can animate still images for applications requiring the user to see motion – and that at from $67,600 in the US, it is the lowest priced animation superstation on the market. It sees the new model in its Unix line finding favour in applications such as commercial animation, weather forecasting, medical imaging, fluid-flow analysis and molecular modelling. The company also announced graphics imaging software from Wavefront Technologies, and a board set from Folsom Research Inc, of Folsom, California, which enables users to transfer their animated images to videotape. The new computer, based on the Spectrum RISC, combines an HP9000 Series 800 TurboSRX with a high-speed animation interface that transfers data from main memory to the TurboSRX at up to 13Mbytes-per-second, enabling animated images to be played back rapidly. There is also a $5,000 video scan converter, developed by Folsom Research, that enables users to transfer images from HP9000 Series 300 stations to video format; 835ASW ships start November.
