Convex Computer: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 23:16, 29 May 2009

Revision as of 02:21, 10 July 2009

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Another speed boost was planned in the '''C4''', which moved the hardware implementation to [[GaAs]]-based chips, following an evolution identical to that of the Cray machines, but the effort was too little, too late. Some considered the whole C4 program to be nothing more than chasing a business in decline. By this time, even though Convex was the first vendor to ship a [[GaAs]] based product, they were losing money.

In 1994, Convex introduced an entirely new design, known as the '''Exemplar'''. Unlike the C-series '''vector computer''', the Exemplar was a parallel-computing machine based on off-the-shelf HP-PA [[RISC]] chips, connected together using [[Scalable Coherent Interconnect|SCI]]. First dubbed '''MPP''', these machines were later called '''SPP''' and '''Exemplar''' and sold under the '''SPP-1600''' moniker. The expectation was that a software programingprogramming model for parallel computing could draw in customers. But the type of customers Convex attracted believed in [[Fortran]] and brute force rather than sophisticated technology. The Operating System also had terrible performance problems which could not easily be fixed. Eventually, Convex established a working partnership with HP's hardware and software divisions. Initially it was intended that the Exemplar would be binary-compatible with HP's HPUX. But eventually it was decided to port HPUX to the platform and sell the platform as standalone servers.

In 1995, Hewlett-Packard bought Convex. HP sold Convex Exemplar machines under the '''S-Class''' (MP) and '''X-Class''' (CC-NUMA) titles, and later incorporated some of Exemplar's technology into the '''V-Class''' machine, which was released running the HPUX 11.0 release instead of the SPP-UX version which was sold with the S- and X-Class products.