From: ian@MasPar.COM (Ian L. Kaplan)
Subject: MP-2 Update Press Release
Apparently-To: uunet!comp-parallel
Organization: MasPar Computer Corp.
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 18:30:51 GMT

  This does not have too much marketing flack and I thought people
might be interested.

                            Ian Kaplan
			    MasPar Compiler Group
			    ian@maspar.com

MASPAR COMPUTER CORPORATION                                                                                                                           
749 North Mary Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94086
Scott Humphrey (408) 736-3300               FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MasPar Ships 13 MP-2 Massively Parallel Processing (MPP) 
                        Systems 

Sunnyvale, Calif., January 25, 1993 - MasPar Computer Corporation 
announced today that it shipped thirteen MP-2 massively parallel 
computer systems during 1992, in what company officials described 
as a faster-than-projected start-up for the MP-2, which was 
introduced on October 6, 1992.  
     "MasPar announced and delivered volume shipments of the MP-2 
within the same quarter, including three of our largest 16,384 
processor systems," said Jeff Kalb, MasPar President and CEO.  
"This is particularly significant in the high-performance 
computing segment, which historically has preannounced its 
products by as much as one year."
     The thirteen systems shipped had an aggregate performance of 
over 44 GFLOPS of compute power and were comprised of more than 
140,000 32-bit processors.  "In one quarter, we roughly doubled 
the compute power in the hands of our customers," said Kalb.  
     The MP-2 delivers up to five times the performance of the 
MP-1, yet retains binary compatibility, a unique attribute in the 
rapidly moving and research-oriented MPP market.  The MP-2 is 
priced from $260,000 to $1.6 million, depending on system 
configuration.
     MasPar customers who purchased MP-2 systems include the Ames 
Lab at Iowa State University, the MP-2 beta site;  The Institute 
for Genomic Research;  University of California, Irvine;  and the 
University of Tennessee.
     "The MP-2 delivers an average of four times the performance 
of a comparably-configured MP-1 on our applications and was up and 
running the day it arrived at our facility," said Dr. John 
Gustafson, Director of the Ames Lab at Iowa State University, the 
MasPar MP-2 beta site.  "The MP-2 performs as advertised."
     Dr. Petter Bjorstad, Professor of Computer Science at the 
University of Bergen, Norway, purchased a 16,384 processor DECmpp 
12000Sx upgrade through Digital Equipment Corporation.  
     "The upgrade was carried out in a matter of hours, and our 
software moved onto the new system without change," said Bjorstad.  
"We have experienced a four-fold improvement in application 
performance;  although equally important at our site was the 
factor of four increase in memory size.  We expect the system to 
deliver supercomputer performance across a wide range of 
applications."           
     MasPar Computer Corporation, headquartered in Sunnyvale, 
California is a leader in the emerging market for massively 
parallel processing, a new approach to high performance computing 
using thousands of processors working in unison.  MasPar has 
shipped over 140 revenue systems and 700,000 processors since 
introduction in January 1990. MasPar products are used extensively 
in industry and academia for applications ranging from simulations 
of automotive crashes to cancer and AIDS research.  

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