Are we getting screwed by a false link to supercomputers?
Supercomputers have been part of the Export Controls for a long time. Of course, a few years ago, "supercomputer == Cray-1" was the obvious definition. Eugene Brooks's "Attack of the Killer Micros" has hit that industry hard.* Some of the DEC Alpha machines hit that speed point, and lots of lobbying was started that gradually moved the limit. But now, "Cray-1 ~~ Pentium-133" for basic number-crunching, though there are still applications requiring really high memory bandwidth where the Cray-1 will outperform the Pentium, and the Crays have a much better I/O architecture than your basic PC (though PCIbus is no slouch, and Ultra-Wide-Hyper-SCSI stuff keeps improving as well.) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ * "Careful with that VAX, Eugene!". The "Attack of the Killer Micros" was Brooks's restatement of Moore's Law for the supercomputer industry, probably 10 years ago when I was still reading comp.arch. Thanks! Bill Bill Stewart, stewarts@ix.netcom.com Regular Key PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639