Parsys Ltd, London NW, has its new SN9500 and SN9400 desktop massively parallel machines at Hannover, five days before it rolls out the SN2000 model at the same show (CI No 2,372). The SN9500 starts at UKP17,500 for four processors, and can be used with up to 32 HTRAM Transputer modules, each containing a T9000 processor. HTRAMS are a de facto standard for Transputer modules. Rated at up to 6,400 MIPS, the machine can be hooked up to an optional Sparc-based host and comes with up to 2Gb of memory, and uses up to four motherboards which can take up to eight Size 4 or Size 2 HTRAMS each. The HTRAMS connect to four 100M-byte per second C104 switches in the machine’s backplane. Parsys is also working on specialised HTRAMS for Ethernet and SCSI. The machines run the Inmos Ltd development tool sets, the ACE parallel development system, and the Idris Unixalike, which can act as a Posix-compliant Unix system for recompiled applications. The firm will have Oracle running on the unit within a few months. The baby SN9400 is a desktop system that links to a personal computer or workstation front end. The machine takes up to 12 HTRAMS for a peak performance of 2,400 MIPS and 300 MFLOPS. Like the 9500, it will take Parsys’ own SCSI and Ethernet HTRAMS and will run the same software. Starting at UKP3,375 for one processor with 4Mb memory, it can also be networked.
