Speeding The Use Of Supercomputers
Supercomputers are fast, powerful - and worthless if only a chosen few are able to envision what the new machines can do. This is the message of Clifford R. Perry, Kodak's director of information and computing technologies, who told the National Academies of Science and Engineering recently: "Our number one priority, in my view, is to create better ways of communicating not only how we use supercomputers, but how we assimilate their use." He added that the current lack of communication, both between companies as well as within companies, "is principally responsible for the very slow rate of application of supercomputers to industrial R&D problems." Other firms might take a lesson from Kodak. It is assaulting its communication barrier with a plethora of programs, from a series of monthly lectures given by leading computer scientists to an interplant technical conference, held last fall, on supercomputing ...
