Similar arrangements were common on massively parallel machines in the 1980s.

It provides a set of software libraries that allow a computing node to act as a "parallel virtual machine".

These measures can be related to running time on parallel machines.

His goal is to sell nearly 100 parallel machines by the end of this year, and he wants to ship "hundreds" in 1994.

Scientists still debate whether it will be possible to design massively parallel machines that are appropriate for the challenges faced by research centers.

The growing realization that little is yet certain in the design of new parallel machines has spurred interest among small companies.

We aren't really interested in whether a problem can be solved quickly on a parallel machine.

By this time a number of massively parallel machines were coming into the market at price/performance points the Cray-3 could not touch.

The new chip is also to feature in Convex's parallel machine, due late next year or early in 1994.

"We wanted our parallel machines to be out there living and breathing in real applications," he said.