Despite deciding that it does want the assets of Floating Point Systems Inc after all, Cray Research Inc is apparently not interested in following Floating Point in using the Sparc RISC in a forthcoming line of massively parallel machines. Instead, reports Electronic News, the company is negotiating with Digital Equipment Corp to use its forthcoming Alpha RISC, most likely for its proposed parallel machines. The paper suggests that a new company, formed in Sunnyvale by former MIPS Computer Systems Inc research and development executive John Moussourie, may be involved in the negotiations as well. The new company, MicroUnity Systems Engineering Inc, is said to be working on a version of the Alpha designed for massively parallel computing: DEC’s interest in the field is underscored by its investment in, and remarketing agreement with, Maspar Computer Corp. Cray is understood to be interested in the Alpha for a second-generation parallel machine planned for around 1995; a first generation model, effectively a prototype, would precede in it 1993, and that might use Sparc. Cray’s interest in the Alpha is said to have been excited by the fact that the 64-bit part is said to have more in common with the architecture of the original Cray 1 than with DEC’s own VAX. However the successor machines to the Cray 1 are now with Seymour Cray’s spin-out Cray Computer Corp.
