With the prospect of losing Cray Research Inc as a customer for its RISC from the parallel scientific supercomputer world, Digital Equipment Corp is desperate for any replacement, and London, UK-based massively parallel processing systems house Pars ys Ltd has come up trumps. It is using DEC’s 21066 and 21164 Alpha RISC chips and taking OEM a bunch of communications technologies – including DEC’s 100Mbps PCI bus Memory Channel interconnect from Alpha partner Encore Computer Corp – to build low- cost scalable parallel processing systems. The new systems will be dedicated boxes, customized for application development in the scientific sector. It says it’s still studying the commercial market for opportunities. Parsys admits the networked wor kstation has eaten into the traditional Transputer-based parallel market, and claims its dedicated approach is just what the scientific market needs. It will include its DS link for communications where required. The DS link includes a control Transputer with up to 16Mb memory for disk and tape access via a SCSI interface. Parsys’s current range of machines are based on the Inmos Ltd T805 and T9000 Transputers. Parsys’s Supernode 9000 series uses a hybrid processor board combining Alpha for ho rsepower and T9000s for communication. Although it’s still working on a price strategy for the customized boxes, it has already shipped one to Germany.
