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Acorn's Supercomputer REVIEWS HARDWARE ACORNS SUPERCOMPUTER Peter Yoke witnesses the 32016 Second Processor in action The BBC microcomputer is almost unique in impressive. Andrew's 32016 co-processor and its design as a stand-alone personal or BBC micro have never broken down, and are education computer that can also act as a ' run from double 80-track floppy drives. Other front-end' for a different and possibly much academics are using them for statistical more powerful second processor. The concept analysis in biology, or doing long Fourier proved fruitful for Acorn when it brought out transforms on data taken directly from the Master series: by putting the 'back-end' instruments. processors inside the case, the hybrid BBC Of course Fortran is not the only possibility: micros can serve a variety of markets, with 32016 Assembler, Pascal, Lisp, Basic and Turbo, Master 512 and SC versions catering BCPL are all available, plus several packages for the home enthusiast, small business user run within or using these languages, such as and higher education markets respectively. the Gino-F (for Fortran graphics), GCAL (a The Master SC is not out yet, but its text processor written in BCPL) and the precursors, the 32016 Second Processor and algebraic manipulation package Reduce (in the Acorn Cambridge Workstation, have been Cambridge Lisp). The languages are all around for some time. Little is heard of the Little Is heard standard (Fortran has the WHILE statement 32016 processor partly because of the very as an optional extension), and generally specialised market it is aimed at; it is of the 32016 processor partly appear topnotch. If you are keen on Lisp, designed primarily for use in colleges and because of the very specialised make sure it is the dialect you want. If BCPL universities, and Acorn have only sold a few market it Is aimed at; it is designed is what you are after, try it first; it is probably hundred machines so far. As I hope to primarily for colleges and universities the weakest of the languages on the 32016. explain, the 32016 is a very different Prolog is promised, along with more proposition from the more familiar 6502 and applications packages. Z80 second processors. The main complaints are that too many For one thing, it costs more: 32016s are important features had been 'promised' by available with one megabyte (mb) of RAM, Acorn for far too long. Sounds familiar costing typically £1400. (The Master SC was handle Fortran programs ported straight on to enough. Crucially, the 32016 still does nor originally said to have half a megabyte, the 32016 from the London University have a good straightforward wordprocessor – though most of the software available needs network. I spoke to Dr Andrew Tworkowsi, you have to use GCAL, or make do with 1mb.) The Cambridge Workstation is who was running programs originally View on the BBC micro. The popular basically a complete 1mb system with developed for the university's Cray-1, one of scientific wordprocessor Vuwriter is separate keyboard and screen included, the fastest supercomputers in the world. promised, but the current version is unusably costing £3480 plus VAT; there is a 4mb Andrew was using the 32016 to pursue his slow according to Acorn. Vuman, the authors version of the Workstation, too. It is research on chaotic dynamical systems, and of Vuwriter, are trying to speed it up. immediately apparent that the 32016-based getting the same answer using double A rather less rosy story comes from those systems are not ordinary 'home' machines. To precision Fortran on the 32016 as he had got who are using the networked 32016 find out more, there is no better place to go from the 64-bit Cray machine. For his processors. David Pick, who as head of Small than Queen Mary College in the East End of programs, running time on the 32016 was Systems in the computer unit at QMC has his London, which has no less than 80 of the 300 about 140 times longer than on the Cray, so own 32016 in his office but is also in charge machines Acorn have sold. programs that had taken half an hour on the of the software for the networked machines, The 32016s at Queen Mary College (QMC) supercomputer took three days on the 32016. sums up his mixed experiences by saying: ' are being used in two quite distinct ways. But since the Cray had to be shared with When they are good they are very, very good, Sixty-four of the 80 machines are linked up in many other users, a job like that would but when they are bad . Econet networks; each network consists of up frequently take up to a week to be run on the Quite simply, in the months since the 32016 to 12 processors (each plugged into its own supercomputer. Andrew now gets his results networks were set up, single machines have BBC, of course) together with its Winchester faster, using a machine that is more than a crashed far too frequently. When use of a hard disc fileserver. The other machines, thousand times cheaper. network has been high, it is possible for the however, are being used as personal Individual supercomputers like Andrew whole network to crash so that it has to be supercomputers by individual members of Tworkowski's 32016 are an immensely rebooted from scratch. Of course this can staff who have number-crunching research attractive proposition, and anyone who wants happen on any Econet; but the large files that projects under way. a desk-top Fortran engine and doesn't need a network serving 32016s has to transfer seem The individual academics who have 32016s more than 1mb total memory should consider to make the problem more frequent. Lecturers are all fairly pleased with them. Most are one. You may not always get one-140th of the who are trying to teach Fortran, Pascal or using the 32016 Fortran-77 compiler, which speed of a Cray-1, but my tests suggest you Lisp to groups of first or second year students can will never get worse than a 700th, which is were still ACORN USER SEPTEMBER 1986 145 REVIEWS HARDWARE Deborah Pollard of QMC had some grim experiences with the early versions of the Panos operating system keen on the 32016s at first; but their have improved markedly since the field trial Design; there is no mouse or trackerball enthusiasm soon cooled as their students version 1.3 of Panos was installed recently, software, and the screen resolution is too low. started to give up in disgust, put off by the and is expecting that things will run a lot Deborah also commented on the lack of a regular unreliability of the networks. more smoothly next academic year. Loading decent wordprocessor or spreadsheet for the In defence of the 32016 (and Acorn), it files and linking compiled code for running 32016 (Matrix 3 is 'promised', like Vuwriter). should be said that QMC is what the are both much faster under Panos 1.3, though In spite of these complaints, what I saw in Americans would call a 'beta test site'; in someone used to other well-known operating the Centre seemed impressive. Most of the other words a field trial site for many of the systems will still find such actions as loading work is done in Fortran, and the facilities for systems (hardware and software) that make up the 32016 package. In particular, QMC has or deleting files rather slow. creating, compiling and running code seem been deliberately pushing the Econet A number of good computer aided teaching attractive and easy to use. Regrettably there networks as far as they will go – and probably programs had been brought across from the are still a few bugs in the screen editor (which a good bit further. It may well be that QMC College's ICL mainframe (a straightforward is otherwise excellent) though most have been has seen every problem that can crop up on process) and ran without too much alteration. eliminated in Panos 1.3. the 32016, and that they are now nearly Standard Fortran-77 will usually run first time The Pascal and Lisp have been used by ironed out. on the 32016. Programmers used to a lecturers teaching in the Computer Science Deborah Pollard, who runs the Computer mainframe find the 32016 a bit short on Department, but the networks have caused Aided Design and Education Centre at QMC, just as many problems in these contexts. A has had some of the worst experiences with facilities such as Fortran debugging course on algebraic manipulation using the her relatively small network in the Centre. diagnostics, the ability to link in libraries Machines typically crashed three or four from one language to another, a Basic Lisp program Reduce could only take place at times a session with the older versions of the compiler or the means to dump a screen to all because of the facilities provided by the operating system, Panos. Deborah emphasises disc or printer. The 32016 is still limited to 32016. Unfortunately, the large amount of that things some extent by the BBC micro, and is less code required students to interact frequently than ideal for Computer Aided with the Win- ACORN USER SEPTEMBER 1986 147 REVIEWS HARDWARE chester over the network – and the crashes you are an individual researcher or freelance have been correspondingly more severe. The software developer, the 32016 is well worth 32016 is now reaching the point where it may considering. The totally standard Fortran and well get – and deserve – more attention.
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