Prime Computer Inc has high hopes for strong sales of its MXCL 5 minisupercomputer in Europe, where it has exclusive rights to market the Cydrome machine. The pan-European launch, which was held just ahead of the US event, included a tour around the University of Surrey in the historic town of Guildford, where the first MXCL 5 in Europe has already been installed. The University has not bought the machine, however, but in what is thought to be a unique arrangement, will use it for its own purposes in return for acting as a benchmarking centre and demonstration site for prospective Prime customers. An established Prime user, the university will show off Prime’s connectivity tools, which allow integration with its established Series 50 minicomputer family. Prime is no doubt hoping that the University will also add to its software base – eight packages, including Math Advantage, Plot 10, Itpack, Fidap and the Numerica Algorithms Group library were included in the announcements. But according to the Surrey University vice-chancellor, professor Bernie Cohen, some of the work in the department would be in areas away from Prime’s major concentration of Fortran applications: he plans to use the machine’s processing power for advanced artificial intelligence research.
