Cray Research Inc, Eagan, Minnesota hopes that flattery will get it everywhere in Japan, and so it chose Tokyo for the worldwide launch of a range of new models in its C90 line to replace the existing Y-MP machines. The new models are about 20% more expensive than the models they replace, but are about three times more powerful, which it reckons works out at an average 2.5-fold improvement in price-performance. The new line includes the first air-cooled machines in the C90 series, a two-processor C92A and a four-processor C94A, which it says were developed in response to demand from Japanese commercial users. The other models are the liquid-cooled Cray C94, the eight-processor liquid-cooled Cray C98, and an expansion of the 16-processor Cray C916 system, which was introduced way back in November 1991 and has up to now been marketed as the Cray Y-MP C90.
