Convex Computer Corp is believed to have delivered another blow to MIPS Computer Systems Inc, deciding to shift its Medusa project to build a 64-processor supercomputer, and its separate effort to do a massively parallel machine, over to Hewlett-Packard Co’s Precision Architecture RISC. The Richardson, Texas company had been planning to use the 64-bit MIPS R4000 in both projects (CI No 1,739). Electronic News hears that the decision was made because of concern that in implementing a 64-bit RISC, MIPS had used so much of the available real estate on the chip to implement 64-bit addressing, making it necessary to design a skimpier and less powerful floating point processor. And delays in getting the part out enabled Hewlett and IBM Corp to catch up with the floating point performance vital to Convex. The paper suggests that some Convex people leaned towards adopting the IBM chip but that it was ultimately rejected because Convex might have found itself competing with similar scientifically-oriented machines from IBM, whereas Hewlett-Packard is a less significant player in the scientific market. The Digital Equipment Corp Alpha was ruled out by the fact that Cray Research Inc wants it.
