Hold on, I misquoted Tim's suggestion on the SMPP in my earlier post. This corrects it. ------------------- Tim posted a few days ago: I was intrigued by this disappearance, so I sent an e-mail message to Gunter Ahrendt. Through the joys of time zones, my message this evening was answered within minutes, from Australia. He told me the NSA machine remains, though it has been renamed, has been put under another site, and its performance rating has been recalculated based on a new metric. Gunter's latest report (in comp.sys.super) explains the new metric. Grepping for the name "SMPP," here's where I found it: 58) 16.46 - (APR-1994) [SRC] Supercomputing Research Center,Bowie,Maryland,US,root@super.org 1) Cray 3/4-128 [-4Q96] 11.46? 2) SRC Terasys ~ 5 3) SRC SMPP-4/2M [+4Q96] 503.33? This is also very intriguing. The machine formerly called the "NSA SMPP-2/2M" and expected to be located at NSA Central Security Service, is now to be located in nearby Bowie at the Supercomputing Research Center. End Tim ---------------------------- The NY Times says (in a business report): "The new Cray computer will be a hybrid design called the Cray 3/Super Scalable System. It will link two supercomputer processors with an array of chips containing half a million inexpensive processors that were designed by a Government laboratory connected with the NSA. * * * The Cray 3 supercomputer, two years late to market when it appeared last year, has not yet found a customer, and Cray executives said they were pinning their hopes for survival on the Cray 4, due to be completed in the first quarter of next year." End Times ---------------------------- Does Gunter's "SRC SMPP-4/2M" = "hybrid design" as Tim suggests today? How do the numbers compare to Peter's? On another point, then, does today's contract report merely tell an out-of-date story, and if so, why? A way to keep Cray afloat? If so, why not Thinking Machines? Mr. Cray has been a loyal NSA supplier for many years, perhaps this is for his well-earned retirement. Okay by me. Maybe then he can afford to share all his supercomp secrets. John