"People who might say 'Who needs petaflop computing today?' are the same folks who asked who needs a teraflop, who needs a gigaflop, who needs a megaflop. The automation of activities of society, of industry, and of government will never end."

--George Cotter, U.S. National Security Agency, quoted in High Performance Computing and Communications Week (September 1, 1994).

Along the pathway on the search for more sophisticated computing engines, NCSA is positioning for the next generation of HPCC. Currently the center is integrating scalable microprocessing machines into its metacomputing environment. These changes are outlined in "Scalable metacomputing strategy at NCSA". An analysis of this strategy, "NCSA assesses application codes," can be drawn from scalability studies conducted at the center.

NCSA's new configuration of scalable architecture includes the retirement of the vectorized CRAY Y-MP system. For a survey of significant science produced on that machine, turn to page 9. Read about how UIUC students in a dynamic modeling class learned the principles of computational modeling in "Modeling impacts the environment". "Data driven sound: The next step" describes the addition of sonification to scientific research utilizing NCSA's virtual environment. Last summer high school science and math teachers became students again in a new version of SuperQuest.

In the new technology section, various aspects of NCSA Mosiac's impact are presented, including some helpful advice on "HTML for World Wide Web users" and an online state fair. CCNet activities and Ceperley wins Feenberg medal may be found in the center activities section.

Howard Rheingold's latest book, The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier, is reviewed.

--Fran Bond, Editor

access / Fall 1994 / NCSA