Masscomp, Massachusetts Computer Corp in Westford, has announced a number of new software and hardware products for Masscomp 5000 family of Unix systems which it would like people to think of as micro supercomputers (they won’t). The enhancements include new hardware options on a couple of models – the MC5600 now supports up to three of the 68020-based CPUs; both the MC5600 and MC5550 have new 15-slot package options with power supply enhancements; and both systems can optionally be equipped with the new FPA-2 Lightning floating point accelerator, a choice of new data acquisition modules, and a new Multibus expander box. The latest model of the FPA-1 is rated at 4m Whetstones per second, and is a new option for MC5450 and MC5550 systems. It can also be used with the MC5400, MC5520, MC5500 PEP, MC5600, and MC5700. A new Disk Performance Accelerator for 278Mb disk subsystems enables the drives to to run at their maximum transfer rate of 2Mbytes-per-second within a cylinder; the new version 3.3 of the SP-50 data acquisition control software has been enhanced to support three new input-output modules, to provide additional clock set-up support, and to increase the functionality of the AD12FA high-speed analogue-to-digital converter. A new version of the SP-7-0 Ethernet software enables in-kernel protocols to run on any Masscomp system, and is claimed to offer higher throughput on MC68020-based systems than previously attainable. The updated SP-75 X25 software features a new programmer’s interface library of functions, and supports up to 120 virtual circuits per Serial Communications Processor, compared with the previous limit of 16 per Masscom systems can support one or two of the Serial Processors. The latest releases of MC-CORE, MC-GKS, and Metafile include enhancements to segment storage functions, as well as rearranged, more easily linked libraries, and new graphics driver capabilities. The MC5550 and MC5600 options and enhancements and the new graphics releases are available now; Lightning FPA-2 in July; and the other products in May.
