U. of Toronto acquires KSR1 parallel computer
Dr. Edmund West
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO ACQUIRES
KENDALL SQUARE RESEARCH PARALLEL COMPUTER
Toronto, Ontario, August 16, 1993 --- Under the terms of a
partnership agreement announced today between the University of
Toronto and Kendall Square Research, U of T will take delivery
this month of a KSR1 highly parallel computer.
Kendall Square, of Waltham, Massachusetts, will also provide
the University with a series of research grants.
The KSR1 computer will support principal investigators and
graduate students who are conducting a broad range of research
that requires complex, high-speed computing. As well, the system
is intended to be used for selected undergraduate courses.
"Given the unique features of the KSR1, it's likely that some
industries will want to experiment with it," said David Sadleir,
the University's vice-president of computing and communications.
"We're prepared to co-operate with interested organizations and
other institutions to help develop the expertise needed by Cana-
dians in this rapidly emerging class of computing machinery."
Standard computers operate in a linear fashion, taking each
small piece of a computing problem in sequence. Parallel comput-
ers solve complex problems in less time by working on various
elements of the problem simultaneously.
"The fact that several faculties, academic departments and
institutes have contributed to the funding for the system is the
best possible indication of the researchers' belief that we need
to rapidly develop our expertise with this class of machine,"
Sadleir said. He emphasized that the KSR1 was chosen only after
an extensive selection process. Vendor proposals were examined
by a staff and faculty review committee representing various
areas of the University: astronomy, chemistry, computer science,
electrical and computer engineering, mechanical engineering, med-
ical genetics, physics, and instructional and research computing.
Professor Emeritus C.C. Gotlieb, who chaired the review com-
mittee, said the choice among the three competition finalists was
difficult, but a clear consensus was achieved based on the unique
attributes of the KSR product.
The KSR system provides hardware support for a shared memory
programming model. The 32-processor system offers peak
performance of 1.28 Gigaflops, or 1.28 billion arithmetic opera-
tions per second. Its full complement of system software
includes a variety of tools that permit programmers to achieve
the full potential of the system more easily than with other
parallel systems.
"We are gratified that the extensive review carried out by
the University supported the KSR1 implementation," said Henry
Burkhardt III, president and CEO of Kendall Square. "We believe
this partnership will generate significant benefits for all those
whose research is supported by the system."
Kendall Square Research develops, manufactures, markets and
supports a family of scalable, high-performance, general-purpose
computer systems for a broad range of mainstream applications,
including database management and inquiry, numerically intensive
computation and on-line transaction processing.
-----------------------------------
CONTACT: Alida Minchella Charles T. (Chuck) Casale
U of T Public Affairs Kendall Square Research
(416) 978-4289 (617) 895-3883/9400