Isra Vision Parsytec AG, a subsidiary of Isra Vision, was originally founded in 1985 as Parsytec (parallel system technology) in Aachen, Germany.
Parsytec gained recognition in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a manufacturer of transputer-based parallel systems. Its product lineup ranged from single transputer plug-in boards for IBM PCs to large, massively parallel systems with thousands of transputers (or processors), such as the Parsytec GC. Some sources describe the latter as ultracomputer-sized, scalable multicomputers (smC).Massively Parallel Computers: Why Not Parallel Computers for the Masses? G. Bell at microsoft.comAlternating-Direction Line-Relaxation Methods on Multicomputers J. Hofhaus et al., SIAM J. ScI. COMPUT. Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 454-478, March 1996
As part of ISRA VISION AG, the company now focuses on the machine vision and industrial image processing sectors. ISRA Parsytec products are primarily used for quality and surface inspection, particularly in the metal and paper industries.
History
Parsytec was founded in 1985 in Aachen, Germany, by Falk-Dietrich Kübler, Gerhard H. Peise, and Bernd Wolff, with an 800,000 DM grant from the Federal Ministry for Research and Technology (BMFT).Duell der Zahlenfresser at zeit.de (German)
Unlike SUPRENUM, Parsytec focused its systems, particularly in pattern recognition, on industrial applications such as surface inspection. As a result, the company not only captured a significant market share in European academia but also attracted numerous industrial customers, including many outside Germany. By 1988, exports accounted for approximately one-third of Parsytec's revenue. The company's turnover figures were as follows: zero in 1985, 1.5 million DM in 1986, 5.2 million DM in 1988, 9 million DM in 1989, 15 million DM in 1990, and 17 million USD in 1991.
To allow Parsytec to focus on research and development, a separate entity, ParaCom, was established to handle sales and marketing operations. While Parsytec/ParaCom maintained its headquarters in Aachen, Germany, it also operated subsidiary sales offices in Chemnitz (Germany), Southampton (United Kingdom), Chicago (USA), St Petersburg (Russia), and Moscow (Russia).Parsytec GmbH at new-npac.org In Japan, Parsytec's machines were distributed by Matsushita.
Between 1988 and 1994, Parsytec developed an impressive range of transputer-based computers, culminating in the "Parsytec GC" (GigaCluster). This system was available in configurations ranging from 64 to 16,384 transputers.Parsytec Article at GeekDot.com
Parsytec went public in mid-1999 with an initial public offering (IPO) on the German Stock Exchange in Frankfurt.
On 30 April 2006, founder Falk-D. Kübler left the company.Annual Statement of Accounts 2006 at parsytec.de
In July 2007,ISRA Vision übernimmt Parsytec Jul 23, 2007 at finanznachrichten.de (German) ISRA VISION AG acquired 52.6% of Parsytec AG.ISRA VISION AG - Erwerb der Mehrheit an der Parsytec AG Jul 24, 2007 at equinet-ag.de (German) The delisting of Parsytec shares from the stock market began in December of the same year, and since 18 April 2008, Parsytec shares have no longer been listed on the stock exchange.Investor Relations at ISRA at parsytec.de
While Parsytec had a workforce of roughly 130 staff in the early 1990s, the ISRA VISION Group employed more than 500 people in 2012/2013.Annual Report 2012/2013 May 05, 2014 at isravision.com
Today, the core business of ISRA Parsytec within the ISRA VISION Group is the development and distribution of surface inspection systems for strip products in the metal and paper industries.
Products/Computers Parsytec's product range included: Megaframe (T414/T800) – One per board, up to ten boards in a rack or as plug-in boards MultiCluster (T800) – Up to 64 processors in a single rack SuperCluster (T800) – 16 to 1,024 processors in a single frame GigaCluster (planned: T9000; realized: T800 or MPC 601) – 64 to 16,384 processors in "cubes" x'plorer (T800 or MPC 601) Cognitive Computer (MPC 604 and Intel Pentium Pro) Powermouse (MPC 604)
In total, approximately 700 stand-alone systems (SC and GC) had been shipped.
Initially, Parsytec participated in the GPMIMD (General Purpose MIMD)General-Purpose MIMD Machines at cordis.europa.eu project under the umbrella of the ESPRIT program,European programme (EEC) for research and development in information technologies (ESPRIT), 1984-1988 both of which were funded by the European Commission's Directorate for Science. However, after significant disagreements with other participants—Meiko, Parsys, Inmos, and Telmat—regarding the choice of a common physical architecture, Parsytec left the project and announced its own T9000-based machine, the GC. Due to Inmos' issues with the T9000, Parsytec was forced to switch to a system using a combination of Motorola MPC 601 CPUs and Inmos T805 processors. This led to the development of Parsytec's "hybrid" systems (e.g., GC/PP), where transputers were used as communication processors while the computational tasks were offloaded to the PowerPCs.
Parsytec's cluster systems were operated by an external workstation, typically a SUN workstation (e.g., Sun-4).A Framework for Characterising Parallel Systems for Performance Evaluation Efstathios Papaefstathiou (1995)
There is considerable confusion regarding the names of Parsytec products. This is partly due to the architecture, but also because of the aforementioned unavailability of the Inmos T9000, which forced Parsytec to use the T805 and PowerPC processors instead. Systems equipped with PowerPC processors were given the prefix "Power."
The architecture of GC systems is based on self-contained GigaCubes. The basic architectural element of a Parsytec system was a cluster, which consisted, among other components, of four transputers/processors (i.e., a cluster is a node in the classical sense).
A GigaCube (sometimes referred to as a supernode or meganode)ESN Information Bulletin 92-08 at dtic.mil consisted of four clusters (nodes), each with 16 Inmos T805 transputers (30 MHz), RAM (up to 4 MB per T805), and an additional redundant T805 (the 17th processor). It also included local link connections and four Inmos C004 routing chips. Hardware fault tolerance was achieved by linking each T805 to a different C004.Hypecube Solutions for Conjugate Directions, J. E. Hartman (1991) at dtic.mil The unusual spelling of x'plorer led to variations like xPlorer, and the Gigacluster is sometimes referred to as the GigaCube or Grand Challenge.
Megaframe
MegaframeMEGAFRAME TPM-1 - Hardware Documentation Ver. 1.2 (1987) at classiccmp.orgMEGAFRAME MTM-2 - Hardware Documentation Ver. 1.3 (1987) at classiccmp.org was the product name for a family of transputer-based parallel processing modules,MEGAFRAME Familie May 1987 at computerwoche.de (German) some of which could be used to upgrade an IBM PC.Ram Meenakshisundaram's Transputer Home Page at classiccmp.org As a standalone system, a Megaframe could hold up to ten processor modules. Different versions of the modules were available, such as one featuring a 32-bit transputer T414 with floating-point hardware (Motorola 68881), 1 MB of RAM (80 nanosecond access time), and a throughput of 10 MIPS, or one with four 16-bit transputers (T22x) with 64 kB of RAM. Additionally, cards for special features were offered, including a graphics processor with a resolution of 1280 x 1024 pixels and an I/O "cluster" with terminal and SCSI interfaces.Transputersystem ist frei konfigurierbar Mar 1987 at computerwoche.de (German)
Multicluster The MultiCluster-1 series consisted of statically configurable systems that could be tailored to specific user requirements, such as the number of processors, amount of memory, I/O configuration, and system topology. The required processor topology could be configured using UniLink connections, fed through a special backplane. Additionally, four external sockets were provided.
Multicluster-2 used network configuration units (NCUs) that provided flexible, dynamically configurable interconnection networks. The multiuser environment could support up to eight users through Parsytec's multiple virtual architecture software. The NCU design was based on the Inmos crossbar switch, the C004, which offers full crossbar connectivity for up to 16 transputers. Each NCU, made of C004s, connected up to 96 UniLinks, linking internal as well as external transputers and other I/O subsystems. MultiCluster-2 allowed for the configuration of various fixed interconnection topologies, such as tree or mesh structures.
SuperCluster SuperCluster had a hierarchical, cluster-based design. A basic unit was a 16-transputer T800, fully connected cluster, and larger systems included additional levels of NCUs to form the necessary connections. The Network Configuration Manager (NCM) software controlled the NCUs and dynamically established the required connections. Each transputer could be equipped with 1 to 32 MB of dynamic RAM, with single-error correction and double-error detection.
GigaCluster
The GigaCluster (GC) was a parallel computer produced in the early 1990s. A GigaCluster was composed of GigaCubes.
Designed for the Inmos T9000 transputers, the GigaCluster could never be launched as originally planned, as the Inmos T9000 transputers never made it to market on time. This led to the development of the GC/PP (PowerPlus), in which two Motorola MPC 601 (80 MHz) were used as the dedicated CPUs, supported by four Inmos T805 transputers (30 MHz).The Parsytec Power Plus at netlib.org
While the GC/PP was a hybrid system, the GCel ("entry level") was based solely on the T805. B. Heiming, 1996, Technical University Hamburg-Harburg (German)Synthesizing massive parallel simulation systems to estimate switching activity in finite state machines W. Bachmann et al., Darmstadt University of Technology The GCel was designed to be upgradeable to the T9000 transputers (had they arrived in time), thus becoming a full GC. Since the T9000 was Inmos' evolutionary successor to the T800, the upgrade was planned to be simple and straightforward. This was because, firstly, both transputers shared the same instruction set, and secondly, they had a similar performance ratio of compute power to communication throughput. A theoretical speed-up factor of 10 was expected,Gigacube Article at GeekDot.com but in the end, it was never achieved.
The network structure of the GC was a two-dimensional lattice, with an inter-communication speed between the nodes (i.e., clusters in Parsytec's terminology) of 20 Mbit/s. For its time, the concept of the GC was exceptionally modular and scalable.
A so-called GigaCube was a module that was already a one gigaflop system and served as the building block for larger systems. A module (or "cube" in Parsytec's terminology) contained: Four clusters, each equipped with: 16 transputers (plus one additional transputer for redundancy, making it 17 transputers per cluster), 4 wormhole routing chips (C104 for the planned T9000 and C004 for the realized T805), A dedicated power supply and communication ports. By combining modules (or cubes, respectively), one could theoretically connect up to 16,384 processors to create a very powerful system.
Typical installations included:
SystemNumber of CPUsNumber of GigaCubes GC-1 64 1 GC-2 256 4 GC-3 1024 16 GC-4 4096 48 GC-5 16384 256
The two largest installations of the GC that were actually shipped had 1,024 processors (16 modules, with 64 transputers per module) and were operated at the data centers of the Universities of Cologne and Paderborn. In October 2004, the system at Paderborn was transferred to the Heinz Nixdorf Museums Forum,Homepage of the Heinz Nixdorf Museum Forum where it is now inoperable.