Digital Equipment Corp may have had a slow start in getting OEM customers interested in its Alpha AXP chip, but it has now won over four small UK firms to the cause. The first is Edinburgh, Scotland-based Alpha Data Parallel Systems Ltd, which was set up only two months ago – although staff have been developing parallel processor boards based on 166MHz Alpha 21066s for the past six to nine months. Founder and managing director Nory Nakahee used to work for 3L Ltd, which is also located in Edinburgh and specialises in parallel processing software. Realising that some applications, such as image processing, financial modelling and weather forecasting, require more processing power than a single Alpha chip can give, he decided to develop linking technology for power processing. And he came up with the AD66-100 – a parallel processor board with 64Mb of main memory, 256Kb or 1Kb of external cache memory, 8Mb to 64Mb of DRAM, and four bi-directional Transputer-compatible serial links. Each of these links runs at up to 20M-bits per second and can be used concurrently. The AD66-100 can be employed in three ways. It can be connected to other AD66-100s as well as Alpha workstations via its serial links to form a network. An AT version can be plugged into an AT-alike personal computer and hooked up to a network of AD66-100s. And a third option is to insert a third party link adaptor board, sporting an Inmos Ltd T425 processor, into any machine with a VME or Sbus architecture. This includes Sun Microsystems Inc SparcStations, Apple Computer Inc Macintoshes or DEC VAXes. The Transputer essentially interfaces with the Alpha 21066’s Peripheral Component Interconnect bus, and connects the two systems together. AD66-100s also come with DEC’s Alpha C and 3L’s Parallel C compilers, which run in the Alpha processor and are supported by the host operating system. This eliminates the need for a dedicated Alpha system to recompile alien software. A prototype version will be available from the end of January, with volume production scheduled for after March.
Image processing
Pricing has not yet been set. The second company to sign up is Myriad Solutions Ltd. The Cambridge-based firm is using a 166MHz 21064 to build Alphadrive, an application graphics accelerator subsystem for OEM usage. The product is essentially a simple input-output framework for someone to build a cheaper package for their own custom enhancements in such areas as mechanical engineering and image processing. It comprises a small steel box, holding a motherboard; a separate input-output board with Transputer links; AT and EISA interfaces; and IDE links so it can plug into the vacant hard disk drive bays of personal computers or Sun Microsystems Inc and Santa Cruz Operation Inc Unix workstations. Alphadrive should be available by March or April next year, but prices have not been finalised. Next on the list is Mertec Computer Plc, a personal computer manufacturer that also undertakes systems integration for the public sector it specialises in education and health. This is Mertec’s first move away from using an Intel Corp chip in its boxes, which run Microsoft Corp’s MS-DOS and Windows as well as Santa Cruz Operation Inc Unix. The Swansea, South Wales-based company says it has fewer than five Novell Inc UnixWare customers too. Although it already resells Alpha-based workstations and servers, Mertec reckons its own new Alpha-based personal computers, which run OSF/1, NT, or OpenVMS on the servers, will complement the DEC-made machines at the low end rather than compete against them. The brand-conscious can choose to buy a box with the DEC label, while those on a tighter budget can go for its own less expensive model – this will also be custom-configured to match customer needs. The machines, which have not yet been given a name, should be available by the end of December, but pricing has again not been decided. And last, but not least comes DEC value added reseller Digitrol Ltd, also based in Swansea. Digitrol has a 19 rack-mounted 150MHz 21064-based machine that will run
MS-DOS, Windows, NT and OpenVMS. Support for OSF/1 should follow. This is the firm’s first foray into the Unix world, which it has been driven into by customer demand, it said. Digitrol’s perception of how the new systems fit into its existing range is similar to Mertec’s, but it is targeting them at systems integrators and systems builders in the industrial marketplace – including its own internal systems integration division. The boxes should be available by the middle of the month, costing some UKP4,500 according to configuration.
