At first it looked as if the suddenly hot field of neural networks would stand as testimony to the benefits of cooperation and teamwork. Interdisciplinary research—still an avant-garde concept in many disciplines—was the norm, with neurobiologists, chemists, physicists, computer scientists, and psychologists working together to advance the field. Experimental insights into the behavior of nerve cells were inspiring improved computer control of robot arms, while differential equation

The baffling battle over Unix: Why would IBM team up with its arch rivals? Is its software consortium bluffing AT&T? Unix. After years of learning incompatible sets of commands and rewriting programs for each new computer, scientists thought they saw relief on the way. Computer workstations of all stripes run Unix. Cray-2 supercomputers run Unix. Even Apple Computer has introduced a version of the AT&T Bell Labs-developed system for its Macintosh II. Hosanna? Not yet. In the middie of May, s

Although many scientists have access to supercomputers, special-purpose parallel processors, and all kinds of other heavy-duty number-crunching facilities, they still face the question of what to put on their desks. Whatever goes on the desk—or in the corner of the lab— should be able to communicate with remote computers, handle daily chores such as word processing, and even crunch some numbers. A few years ago, the options were relatively clear. Personal computers didn’t do