Convex Computer
Encyclopedia
Convex Computer Corporation was a company that developed, manufactured and marketed vector
minisupercomputer
s and supercomputer
s for small-to-medium-sized businesses. Their later Exemplar series of parallel computing
machines were based on the Hewlett-Packard
(HP) PA-RISC
microprocessors, and in 1995, HP bought the company. Exemplar machines were offered for sale by HP for some time, and Exemplar technology was used in HP's V-Class machines.
in Richardson, Texas
. It was originally named Parsec and early prototype and production boards bear that name. They planned on producing a machine very similar in architecture to the Cray Research vector processor
machines, with a somewhat lower performance, but with a much better price/performance ratio
. In order to lower costs, the Convex designs were not as technologically aggressive as Cray's, and were based on more mainstream chip technology, attempting to make up for the loss in performance in other ways.
Their first machine was the C1, released in 1985. The C1 was very similar to the Cray-1
in general design, but its CPU and main memory was implemented with slower but less expensive CMOS technology. They offset this by increasing the capabilities of the vector units, including doubling the vector registers' length to 128 64-bit elements each. It also used virtual memory
as opposed to the static memory system of the Cray machines, which improved programming. It was generally rated at 20 MFLOPS peak for double precision (64-bit), and 40 MFLOPS peak for single precision (32-bit), about one fifth the normal speed of the Cray-1. They also invested heavily in advanced automatic vectorizing compiler
s in order to gain performance when existing programs were ported to their systems. The machines ran a BSD version of Unix
known initially as Convex Unix then later as ConvexOS due to trademark and licensing issues. ConvexOS has DEC VMS
compatibility features as well as Cray Fortran features. Their Fortran compiler went on to be licensed to other computers such as Ardent and Stellar (and merged Stardent).
The C2 was a crossbar-interconnected multiprocessor
version of the C1, with up to four CPUs, released in 1988. It used newer 20,000-gate CMOS and 10,000-gate emitter-coupled logic
(ECL) gate arrays for a boost in clock speed from 10 MHz to 25 MHz, and rated at 50 MFLOPS peak for double precision per CPU (100 MFLOPS peak for single precision). It was Convex's most successful product.
The C2 was followed by the C3 in 1991, being essentially similar to the C2 but with a faster clock and support for up to eight CPUs implemented with low-density GaAs FPGAs. Various configurations of the C3 were offered, with 50 to 240 MFLOPS per CPU. However, the C3 and the Convex business model were overtaken by changes in the computer industry. The arrival of RISC microprocessors meant that it was no longer possible to develop cost-effective high-performance computing as a standalone small low-volume company. While the C3 was delivered late, which resulted in lost sales, it was still not going to be able to compete with commodity high-performance computing in the long run.
Another speed boost used in the C3 and 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 that used HP PA-7200
microprocessors, connected together using 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 programming 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 HP-UX
operating system but eventually it was decided to port HP-UX 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 HP-UX 11.0 release instead of the SPP-UX version which was sold with the S- and X-Class products.
Bob Paluck strived to maintain an atmosphere that promoted dedication and hard work, but also emphasized fun and creativity.
Convex had an unusually thorough interview process, which, for technical positions, included a grilling by a group of engineers. This was intended to ensure that only the best got to work there. The extensive interview process carried over to other departments as well, where the key people who would be working with the prospective employee each interviewed the candidate, then met in roundtable to discuss whether or not to hire.
This resulted in a very dedicated relatively young employee base who spent most of their waking hours ensuring Convex's success.
The culture was one of creativity. Especially in the first few years, new hires were brought in and given much creative license. New ideas were encouraged and the management generally succeeded in generating an atmosphere where employees considered themselves a vital part of the team.
Banners hung throughout the building, extolling such slogans as "What have you done for the customer today?"
Convex lasted longer than most minisupercomputer
companies, and to celebrate this and more so to remind themselves of the difficulties of the market, Convex had a graveyard of former competitor companies on its property.
Ex-employees of Convex jokingly refer to themselves as ex-cons. There is a mailing list of Convex ex-employees, as well as frequent reunions.
worked at Convex.
Vector processor
A vector processor, or array processor, is a central processing unit that implements an instruction set containing instructions that operate on one-dimensional arrays of data called vectors. This is in contrast to a scalar processor, whose instructions operate on single data items...
minisupercomputer
Minisupercomputer
Minisupercomputers constituted a short-lived class of computers that emerged in the mid-1980s. As scientific computing using vector processors became more popular, the need for lower-cost systems that might be used at the departmental level instead of the corporate level created an opportunity for...
s and supercomputer
Supercomputer
A supercomputer is a computer at the frontline of current processing capacity, particularly speed of calculation.Supercomputers are used for highly calculation-intensive tasks such as problems including quantum physics, weather forecasting, climate research, molecular modeling A supercomputer is a...
s for small-to-medium-sized businesses. Their later Exemplar series of parallel computing
Parallel computing
Parallel computing is a form of computation in which many calculations are carried out simultaneously, operating on the principle that large problems can often be divided into smaller ones, which are then solved concurrently . There are several different forms of parallel computing: bit-level,...
machines were based on the Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...
(HP) PA-RISC
PA-RISC
PA-RISC is an instruction set architecture developed by Hewlett-Packard. As the name implies, it is a reduced instruction set computer architecture, where the PA stands for Precision Architecture...
microprocessors, and in 1995, HP bought the company. Exemplar machines were offered for sale by HP for some time, and Exemplar technology was used in HP's V-Class machines.
History
Convex was formed in 1982 by Bob Paluck and Steve WallachSteve Wallach
Steven "Steve" J. Wallach, born Brooklyn, NY, September 1945, is currently an adviser to Centerpoint Venture partners, Sevin Rosen Funds, and Interwest, and a consultant to the United States Department of Energy Advanced Scientific Computing program at Los Alamos National Laboratory...
in Richardson, Texas
Richardson, Texas
Richardson is a city in Dallas and Collin Counties in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 99,223. In 2011 the population was estimated to be 107,684. Richardson is an affluent inner suburb of Dallas and home of the Telecom Corridor with a high...
. It was originally named Parsec and early prototype and production boards bear that name. They planned on producing a machine very similar in architecture to the Cray Research vector processor
Vector processor
A vector processor, or array processor, is a central processing unit that implements an instruction set containing instructions that operate on one-dimensional arrays of data called vectors. This is in contrast to a scalar processor, whose instructions operate on single data items...
machines, with a somewhat lower performance, but with a much better price/performance ratio
Price/performance ratio
In economics and engineering, the price/performance ratio refers to a product's ability to deliver performance, of any sort, for its price. Generally speaking, products with a higher price/performance ratio are more desirable, excluding other factors....
. In order to lower costs, the Convex designs were not as technologically aggressive as Cray's, and were based on more mainstream chip technology, attempting to make up for the loss in performance in other ways.
Their first machine was the C1, released in 1985. The C1 was very similar to the Cray-1
Cray-1
The Cray-1 was a supercomputer designed, manufactured, and marketed by Cray Research. The first Cray-1 system was installed at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1976, and it went on to become one of the best known and most successful supercomputers in history...
in general design, but its CPU and main memory was implemented with slower but less expensive CMOS technology. They offset this by increasing the capabilities of the vector units, including doubling the vector registers' length to 128 64-bit elements each. It also used virtual memory
Virtual memory
In computing, virtual memory is a memory management technique developed for multitasking kernels. This technique virtualizes a computer architecture's various forms of computer data storage , allowing a program to be designed as though there is only one kind of memory, "virtual" memory, which...
as opposed to the static memory system of the Cray machines, which improved programming. It was generally rated at 20 MFLOPS peak for double precision (64-bit), and 40 MFLOPS peak for single precision (32-bit), about one fifth the normal speed of the Cray-1. They also invested heavily in advanced automatic vectorizing compiler
Compiler
A compiler is a computer program that transforms source code written in a programming language into another computer language...
s in order to gain performance when existing programs were ported to their systems. The machines ran a BSD version of Unix
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
known initially as Convex Unix then later as ConvexOS due to trademark and licensing issues. ConvexOS has DEC VMS
VMS
- Communication and transportation :* Voice Mail System, automated telephone messaging* Video Messaging Service , video messaging for 3G handsets* VMS MobiFone, one of the largest mobile phone operators in Vietnam...
compatibility features as well as Cray Fortran features. Their Fortran compiler went on to be licensed to other computers such as Ardent and Stellar (and merged Stardent).
The C2 was a crossbar-interconnected multiprocessor
Multiprocessor
Computer system having two or more processing units each sharing main memory and peripherals, in order to simultaneously process programs.Sometimes the term Multiprocessor is confused with the term Multiprocessing....
version of the C1, with up to four CPUs, released in 1988. It used newer 20,000-gate CMOS and 10,000-gate emitter-coupled logic
Emitter-coupled logic
In electronics, emitter-coupled logic , is a logic family that achieves high speed by using an overdriven BJT differential amplifier with single-ended input, whose emitter current is limited to avoid the slow saturation region of transistor operation....
(ECL) gate arrays for a boost in clock speed from 10 MHz to 25 MHz, and rated at 50 MFLOPS peak for double precision per CPU (100 MFLOPS peak for single precision). It was Convex's most successful product.
The C2 was followed by the C3 in 1991, being essentially similar to the C2 but with a faster clock and support for up to eight CPUs implemented with low-density GaAs FPGAs. Various configurations of the C3 were offered, with 50 to 240 MFLOPS per CPU. However, the C3 and the Convex business model were overtaken by changes in the computer industry. The arrival of RISC microprocessors meant that it was no longer possible to develop cost-effective high-performance computing as a standalone small low-volume company. While the C3 was delivered late, which resulted in lost sales, it was still not going to be able to compete with commodity high-performance computing in the long run.
Another speed boost used in the C3 and C4, which moved the hardware implementation to GaAs
Gaas
Gaas is a commune in the Landes department in Aquitaine in south-western France....
-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
Gaas
Gaas is a commune in the Landes department in Aquitaine in south-western France....
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 that used HP PA-7200
PA-7200
The PA-7200 , code-named Thunderbird, is a microprocessor that implements the PA-RISC 1.1 instruction set architecture developed by Hewlett-Packard . It was introduced in early 1995, debuting in systems from HP...
microprocessors, connected together using SCI
Scalable Coherent Interconnect
SCI, for Scalable Coherent Interface, is a high-speed interconnect standard for shared memory multiprocessing and message passing. The IEEE Std 1596-1992, IEEE Standard for Scalable Coherent Interface was approved by the IEEE standards board on March 19, 1992...
. First dubbed MPP, these machines were later called SPP and Exemplar and sold under the SPP-1600 moniker. The expectation was that a software programming model for parallel computing could draw in customers. But the type of customers Convex attracted believed in Fortran
Fortran
Fortran is a general-purpose, procedural, imperative programming language that is especially suited to numeric computation and scientific computing...
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 HP-UX
HP-UX
HP-UX is Hewlett-Packard's proprietary implementation of the Unix operating system, based on UNIX System V and first released in 1984...
operating system but eventually it was decided to port HP-UX 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 HP-UX 11.0 release instead of the SPP-UX version which was sold with the S- and X-Class products.
Culture
According to most former employees, Convex was a very fun place at which to work. For some time, there were beer parties every Friday, and an annual Convex Beach Party (where a truck load of sand would be dumped on the parking lot to simulate a beach in Richardson, Texas). There was a fitness center and other recreational facilities on-site.Bob Paluck strived to maintain an atmosphere that promoted dedication and hard work, but also emphasized fun and creativity.
Convex had an unusually thorough interview process, which, for technical positions, included a grilling by a group of engineers. This was intended to ensure that only the best got to work there. The extensive interview process carried over to other departments as well, where the key people who would be working with the prospective employee each interviewed the candidate, then met in roundtable to discuss whether or not to hire.
This resulted in a very dedicated relatively young employee base who spent most of their waking hours ensuring Convex's success.
The culture was one of creativity. Especially in the first few years, new hires were brought in and given much creative license. New ideas were encouraged and the management generally succeeded in generating an atmosphere where employees considered themselves a vital part of the team.
Banners hung throughout the building, extolling such slogans as "What have you done for the customer today?"
Convex lasted longer than most minisupercomputer
Minisupercomputer
Minisupercomputers constituted a short-lived class of computers that emerged in the mid-1980s. As scientific computing using vector processors became more popular, the need for lower-cost systems that might be used at the departmental level instead of the corporate level created an opportunity for...
companies, and to celebrate this and more so to remind themselves of the difficulties of the market, Convex had a graveyard of former competitor companies on its property.
Ex-employees of Convex jokingly refer to themselves as ex-cons. There is a mailing list of Convex ex-employees, as well as frequent reunions.
Famous People at Convex
Some famous names in ComputingComputing
Computing is usually defined as the activity of using and improving computer hardware and software. It is the computer-specific part of information technology...
worked at Convex.
- Co-founder Steve WallachSteve WallachSteven "Steve" J. Wallach, born Brooklyn, NY, September 1945, is currently an adviser to Centerpoint Venture partners, Sevin Rosen Funds, and Interwest, and a consultant to the United States Department of Energy Advanced Scientific Computing program at Los Alamos National Laboratory...
is well-known for his work at Data General, Convex, Convey ComputerConvey ComputerConvey Computer Corporation is a privately owned company, established in December 2006 and is based in Richardson, Texas. Convey has developed a specific form of heterogeneous computing they call hybrid-core computing...
Corporation and other companies. - Brian Berliner developer of the current Concurrent Versions SystemConcurrent Versions SystemThe Concurrent Versions System , also known as the Concurrent Versioning System, is a client-server free software revision control system in the field of software development. Version control system software keeps track of all work and all changes in a set of files, and allows several developers ...
is an ExCon. - Tom Christiansen of PerlPerlPerl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular...
fame worked at Convex in the Technical Assistance Center and then on a project called Convex Meta Series, which was an attempt to create cheap cluster computers. - Dan ConnollyDan ConnollyDan Connolly received a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin in 1990. His research interests include investigating the value of formal descriptions of chaotic systems like the Web, particularly in the consensus-building process, and the Semantic Web.He became involved...
of HTMLHTMLHyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....
and W3C fame worked at Convex on the documentation tools team. - Mark Lutz author of several Python programming languagePython (programming language)Python is a general-purpose, high-level programming language whose design philosophy emphasizes code readability. Python claims to "[combine] remarkable power with very clear syntax", and its standard library is large and comprehensive...
books worked at Convex. - Frank Marshall who led Cisco SystemsCisco SystemsCisco Systems, Inc. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Jose, California, United States, that designs and sells consumer electronics, networking, voice, and communications technology and services. Cisco has more than 70,000 employees and annual revenue of US$...
to great success in the 1990s was VP of engineering at Convex during its peak years. - Robert MorrisRobert Tappan MorrisRobert Tappan Morris, , is an American computer scientist, best known for creating the Morris Worm in 1988, considered the first computer worm on the Internet - and subsequently becoming the first person convicted under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.He went on to co-found the online store...
of Morris worm fame worked as a summer intern at Convex. - Craig Warner Now a R&D Engineer at HP.