BBN Advanced Computers Inc last week announced sales of its Butterfly parallel processor to Indiana University, Mitre Corp, FMC Corp and the Naval Research Laboratory. The systems have a total value of over $700,000, and will be used for applications ranging from artificial intelligence to real-time control. Indiana University is using the Butterfly for projects that include the design of parallelising compilers, graphics, artificial intelligence applications, and the development of genetic algorithms for solving complex combinational problems. The university’s Butterfly system consists of 16 processors with floating point platforms and 16Mb of memory, along with the Butterfly compiler. Mitre Corp has installed an eight-processor Butterfly system with 32Mb of memory and compilers for Butterfly Fortran and C. The system will be used primarily for artificial intelligence applications. FMC Corp, in Minneapolis, has purchased a three-processor Butterfly computer with three floating-point platforms and 12Mb of memory. The Butterfly computer installed at the Naval Research Laboratory, targeted for a range of compute-intensive applications, contains 32 processors with floating-point platforms and 128Mb.
