Floating Point Systems
Encyclopedia
Floating Point Systems Inc. (FPS) was a Beaverton, Oregon
vendor of minisupercomputer
s. The company was founded in 1970 by former Tektronix
engineer Norm Winningstad
.
The original goal of the company was to supply floating point
coprocessor
s for minicomputers. In 1976, the AP-120B
array processor
was produced. This was soon followed by a larger FPS AP-190. In 1981, the follow-on FPS-164 was produced, followed by its big brother, the 264 having the same architecture. This was 5 times faster using ECL
instead of TTL
chips.
These processors were widely used as attached processors for scientific applications in reflection seismology
, physical chemistry
, NSA cryptology and other disciplines requiring large numbers of computations. Attached array processors were usually used in facilities where larger supercomputers were either not needed or not affordable. In 1986, the T-Series hypercube using INMOS
transputers and Weitek
floating-point processors was introduced. The T stood for "Tesseract
". Unfortunately, parallel processing was still in its infancy and the tools and libraries for the T-Series did not make it easy for customers to get the full potential of the parallel architecture. I/O was also a difficulty and the T-Series was discontinued, a mistake costing tens of millions of dollars that was nearly fatal to FPS.
In 1988, FPS acquired the assets of Celerity Computing
of San Diego, California
, renaming itself as FPS Computing. Celerity's product lines were further developed by FPS, the Celerity 6000 minisupercomputer
being developed into the FPS Model 500 series. They later became the S-MP
and APP product lines of Cray Research when FPS was acquired by that larger company in 1991 for $3.25 million.
The S-MP was a SPARC
-based multiprocessor
server (based on the Model 500); the APP an i860-based matrix co-processor array. After CRI purchased FPS, it changed the group's direction by making them Cray Research Superservers, Inc., later becoming the Cray Business Systems Division; however the S-MP architecture was not developed further, instead it was replaced by the Cray Superserver 6400, (CS6400) which was derived indirectly from a collaboration between Sun Microsystems
and Xerox PARC
.
After Silicon Graphics
acquired Cray Research in 1996, this business unit along with the CS6400 product line were sold to Sun Microsystems. This was a great strategic mistake by SGI, as Cray were developing the Starfire system at the time, this being launched by Sun as the very successful Ultra Enterprise 10000 multiprocessor
servers. These systems allowed Sun to become a first tier vendor in the large server market which Silicon Graphics never achieved.
In Usenet
news group history, Steve Stevenson, a T-series owner at Clemson University
started the moderated comp.hypercube news group. As hypercube architectures started to fade, he had the group renamed to comp.parallel which lasts to this day.
Beaverton, Oregon
Beaverton is a city in Washington County, Oregon, United States, seven miles west of Portland in the Tualatin River Valley.As of the 2010 census, the population is 90,267. This makes it the second-largest city in the county and Oregon's sixth-largest city...
vendor of 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. The company was founded in 1970 by former Tektronix
Tektronix
Tektronix, Inc. is an American company best known for its test and measurement equipment such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and video and mobile test protocol equipment. In November 2007, Tektronix became a subsidiary of Danaher Corporation....
engineer Norm Winningstad
Norm Winningstad
C. Norman Winningstad was an American engineer and businessman in the state of Oregon. A native of California, he served in the U.S. Navy during World War II before working at what is now Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory...
.
The original goal of the company was to supply floating point
Floating point
In computing, floating point describes a method of representing real numbers in a way that can support a wide range of values. Numbers are, in general, represented approximately to a fixed number of significant digits and scaled using an exponent. The base for the scaling is normally 2, 10 or 16...
coprocessor
Coprocessor
A coprocessor is a computer processor used to supplement the functions of the primary processor . Operations performed by the coprocessor may be floating point arithmetic, graphics, signal processing, string processing, or encryption. By offloading processor-intensive tasks from the main processor,...
s for minicomputers. In 1976, the AP-120B
FPS AP-120B
The FPS AP-120B was a 38-bit, pipeline-oriented array processor manufactured by Floating Point Systems. It was designed to be attached to a host computer such as a DEC PDP-11 as a fast number-cruncher. Data transfer was accomplished using direct memory access....
array 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...
was produced. This was soon followed by a larger FPS AP-190. In 1981, the follow-on FPS-164 was produced, followed by its big brother, the 264 having the same architecture. This was 5 times faster using ECL
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....
instead of TTL
Transistor-transistor logic
Transistor–transistor logic is a class of digital circuits built from bipolar junction transistors and resistors. It is called transistor–transistor logic because both the logic gating function and the amplifying function are performed by transistors .TTL is notable for being a widespread...
chips.
These processors were widely used as attached processors for scientific applications in reflection seismology
Reflection seismology
Reflection seismology is a method of exploration geophysics that uses the principles of seismology to estimate the properties of the Earth's subsurface from reflected seismic waves. The method requires a controlled seismic source of energy, such as dynamite/Tovex, a specialized air gun or a...
, physical chemistry
Physical chemistry
Physical chemistry is the study of macroscopic, atomic, subatomic, and particulate phenomena in chemical systems in terms of physical laws and concepts...
, NSA cryptology and other disciplines requiring large numbers of computations. Attached array processors were usually used in facilities where larger supercomputers were either not needed or not affordable. In 1986, the T-Series hypercube using INMOS
INMOS
Inmos Limited was a British semiconductor company, founded by Iann Barron, with both the head office and the design office at Aztec West in Bristol, it was incorporated in November 1978.- Products :...
transputers and Weitek
Weitek
Weitek Corporation was a chip-design company that originally concentrated on floating point units for a number of commercial CPU designs. During the early to mid-1980s, Weitek designs could be found powering a number of high-end designs and parallel processing supercomputers...
floating-point processors was introduced. The T stood for "Tesseract
Tesseract
In geometry, the tesseract, also called an 8-cell or regular octachoron or cubic prism, is the four-dimensional analog of the cube. The tesseract is to the cube as the cube is to the square. Just as the surface of the cube consists of 6 square faces, the hypersurface of the tesseract consists of 8...
". Unfortunately, parallel processing was still in its infancy and the tools and libraries for the T-Series did not make it easy for customers to get the full potential of the parallel architecture. I/O was also a difficulty and the T-Series was discontinued, a mistake costing tens of millions of dollars that was nearly fatal to FPS.
In 1988, FPS acquired the assets of Celerity Computing
Celerity Computing
Celerity Computing Inc. was a San Diego, California vendor of Unix based "supermini" computers. Celerity Computing was founded in May 1983 by Steve Vallender, Nick Aneshansley and Andrew McCroklin....
of San Diego, California
San Diego, California
San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest city in California. The city is located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, immediately adjacent to the Mexican border. The birthplace of California, San Diego is known for its mild year-round...
, renaming itself as FPS Computing. Celerity's product lines were further developed by FPS, the Celerity 6000 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...
being developed into the FPS Model 500 series. They later became the S-MP
Cray S-MP
The Cray S-MP was a multiprocessor server computer sold by Cray Research from 1992 to 1993. It was based around the Sun SPARC microprocessor architecture and could be configured with up to eight 66 MHz BIT B5000 processors. Optionally, a Cray APP matrix co-processor cluster could be added to an...
and APP product lines of Cray Research when FPS was acquired by that larger company in 1991 for $3.25 million.
The S-MP was a SPARC
SPARC
SPARC is a RISC instruction set architecture developed by Sun Microsystems and introduced in mid-1987....
-based 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....
server (based on the Model 500); the APP an i860-based matrix co-processor array. After CRI purchased FPS, it changed the group's direction by making them Cray Research Superservers, Inc., later becoming the Cray Business Systems Division; however the S-MP architecture was not developed further, instead it was replaced by the Cray Superserver 6400, (CS6400) which was derived indirectly from a collaboration between Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
and Xerox PARC
Xerox PARC
PARC , formerly Xerox PARC, is a research and co-development company in Palo Alto, California, with a distinguished reputation for its contributions to information technology and hardware systems....
.
After Silicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics, Inc. was a manufacturer of high-performance computing solutions, including computer hardware and software, founded in 1981 by Jim Clark...
acquired Cray Research in 1996, this business unit along with the CS6400 product line were sold to Sun Microsystems. This was a great strategic mistake by SGI, as Cray were developing the Starfire system at the time, this being launched by Sun as the very successful Ultra Enterprise 10000 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....
servers. These systems allowed Sun to become a first tier vendor in the large server market which Silicon Graphics never achieved.
In Usenet
Usenet
Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...
news group history, Steve Stevenson, a T-series owner at Clemson University
Clemson University
Clemson University is an American public, coeducational, land-grant, sea-grant, research university located in Clemson, South Carolina, United States....
started the moderated comp.hypercube news group. As hypercube architectures started to fade, he had the group renamed to comp.parallel which lasts to this day.
External links
- 1986 news about FPS - Daily Journal of Commerce