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- From: jackson@pravda.enet.dec.com ()
- Subject: Re: SIGGRAPH 1992 info request
- Message-ID: <1992Aug20.120900.24957@engage.pko.dec.com>
- Sender: newsdaemon@engage.pko.dec.com (USENET News Daemon)
- Reply-To: jackson@pravda.enet.dec.com ()
- Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
- References: <2A856D7E.16950@noiro.acs.uci.edu> <planting-150892135927@calvin.cs.pitt.edu>
- Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 12:09:00 GMT
- Lines: 57
-
-
- In article <planting-150892135927@calvin.cs.pitt.edu>, planting@cs.pitt.edu (Harry Plantinga) writes:
- |>>
- |>> I'd like to hear from anyone who attended Siggraph 1992 a few weeks
- |>> ago, especially what DEC had to show in their booth? I heard they
- |>> were supposed to show ALPHA systems. If so which graphics boards
- |>> were present and what applications were running? Any details on
- |>> DEC's PEX demos and interoperability with other vendors would be
- |>> appreciated too.
- |>
- |>Supposedly there were three Alpha workstations there; I think they were 150
- |>MHz but I'm not certain.
- |>
- |>I only saw one of them. It was making mandelbrot pictures, "racing" with
- |>three other architectures on the same screen. The closest competitor was
- |>an HP 730, which seemed to be generating pictures at about half the speed.
- |>
- |>Since HP 730's have been available for about a year and Alpha workstations
- |>won't be available for a few months, DEC appears to have caught up with HP
- |>but not really surpassed them (assuming HP isn't standing still).
- |>
-
- I was responsible for the Alpha machines at Siggraph, and staffed the
- Mandelbrot demo, so I feel I should point out a couple of nits in this
- string so far:
-
- First, the HP machine was a 750, not a 730. The 750 is HP's top of
- the line system. (today) We certainly know that HP is not standing
- still, and have made our plans accordingly.
-
- Second, the Alpha machine that you saw was running at 150 Mhz. This
- system was running a full 64-bit implementation of OSF/1
-
- Third, there were three other Alpha machines in the booth, all running
- VMS and third party applications. Two desktop machines (running
- at slightly slower than 150Mhz) and one additional deskside machine.
- These systems were running AVS (Visualization) Ansys (finite element
- analysis) and Anvil (MCAD) from third parties. *NONE* of the systems
- had any 3D Graphics acceleration in them as we're not quite there
- yet with our 3D Drivers. Even without 3D hardware, 3D performance
- was very impressive. (or so our customers have said)
-
-
-
- --
-
-
- William M. Jackson
- Alpha Workstation Product Marketing Manager
- Workstation Engineering
- Digital Equipment Corporation
- 146 Main Street
- Maynard, MA 01754
-
- Mail: Jackson@pravda.enet.dec.com
-
-
-