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From: patth@ccnysci.UUCP (Patt Haring)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african,comp.society.futures
Subject: South Africa : Apartheid System Gets Supercomputer Technology
Message-ID: <2361@ccnysci.UUCP>
Date: 26 Jun 89 10:10:16 GMT
Reply-To: patth@ccnysci.UUCP (Patt Haring)
Organization: City College Of New York
Lines: 124

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SOUTH AFRICA: Apartheid System Gets Supercomputer Technology
 
Johannesburg, June 21, 1989 (AIA) -- As technology transfer 
continues unscathed by sanctions and disinvestment, South 
Africa's computer industry has started to gain access to a 
generation of "supercomputers" using British and USA
products.
 
Acquisition of the supercomputers is seen as a strategic
success  in the battle to get round sanctions. The machines
increase the  effectiveness of research and development aimed
at making apartheid structures more efficient and designing
more advanced  products with military applications.
 
One source of the leading edge technology has come with the 
announcement that the government controlled Council for 
Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) will spin off the 
results of its own supercomputer project to the private
sector.  
 
The new computer system is based on "parallel processing 
technology". Computer scientists in Europe and North America 
have been experimenting with the concept. Scientific
exchanges  with South Africans have made the local advance
possible.
 
The South African computer, called "Massively Concurrent 
Computer" (MCC), uses a "transputer" provided by the British 
processing chip maker Inmos. The "transputer" allows clusters
of  processors to be linked together and work simultaneously
to achieve hitherto unheard of speeds of computation.
 
With the transputer the new processor configuration can be
bolted  into existing mini-computers and micro-computers. 
 
Government and private sector scientists say the combination
of  super-computing capabilities and existing mini/micro-
computers  is most appropriate for South Africa because
imported technology is becoming increasingly expensive and
sanctions may  make access to the technology all but
impossible in the future.  
 
The MCC gives the apartheid military and economic system a 
technology that will upgrade existing systems to
supercomputer  standards.
 
CSIR is forming a new company to manufacture the technology
in  partnership  with  the  local  representative  of  Inmos, 
Allied  Technologies (Altech).
 
Altech is a sister company to Allied Electronics which
purchased,  through its Fintech subsidiary, the South African
subsidiary of  National Cash Register (NCR) when the United
States company disinvested earlier this year. 
 
Industry observers say Altech will use its own subsidiary, 
Electronic Building Elements (EBE), to handle the MMC
project.
 
EBE spokesmen are blunt about the project, saying the
parallel  computing technology will make South Africa "less
vulnerable to  sanctions".
 
Disregard for sanctions by the United States Department of 
Commerce has ensured access to another strain of
supercomputers.  The machine in question is a Convex C-120
mini-computer. The processor delivers much of the computing
power available in the  world's largest computers (made by
the Cray company) in a package  costing less than R2 million
(CDN $1 million).
 
Convex has designed software based on the popular Unix
operating  system which can run more than 350 commercially
available programmes, translate software originally written
for the huge Cray  machines, and simulate the operations of
the DEC VAX mini-computer  popular with science and
engineering sectors.
 
Two machines have been delivered to the universities of 
Stellenbosch (outside Cape Town) and Witwatersrand 
(Johannesburg). The computers are set for use by researchers 
working in mechanical engineering, computational chemistry
and  geophysics.
 
In order to give the export licence, US Department of
Commerce  officials had to be satisfied that the technology
transfer would  not have military applications.
 
However, at Stellenbosch alone the Bureau for Mechanical 
Engineering is financed by private industry. Aeronautical 
research is a speciality at the Bureau. There are suspicions
that  the computer could be used in schemes related to the
development  of a new fighter-bomber aircraft by arms
companies serving the  South African Air Force (SAAF).
 
Both computer systems will aid research and manufacturing in
the  computer and electronics markets which are launching a
new period  of growth and export.
 
Computer industry officials speaking at the 1989 South Africa
Computer Faire say companies are developing "niche markets" 
locally and abroad. South Africa is seen as specialising in
two  areas: software application and computerised armaments. 

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