Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!hiebeler
From: hiebeler@heretic.lanl.gov (David Hiebeler)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: add-on boards to turbo charge a pc/xt
Message-ID: <46V$^_%@rpi.edu>
Date: 15 Jul 90 16:46:23 GMT
References: <2069@motown.Allied.COM>
Organization: Theoretical Division, Los Alamos Nat. Lab; RPI CS Dept
Lines: 47

In article <2069@motown.Allied.COM> hale@motown.Allied.COM (Greg Hale) writes:

> I'm looking for information and/or feedback from anyone who has/knows
> about the various add-on boards for older PCs. This is to upgrade an
> old IBM PC/XT.

  Although this isn't one of the specified types of add-on boards the
author of the article mentioned, I thought it still may be of interest
to some.

  I have an XT clone with one board in it to really supercharge it.
That board is a CAM (Cellular Automata Machine).  Cellular automata
are discrete dynamical systems (some people call them iterative
arrays), that are being used these days to model various types of
physical phenomena such as fluid dynamics, chemical oscillatory
reactions, population dynamics, wave propagation through inhomogenous
media, etc etc (the list keeps growing).

  So anyways, I've got this CAM in my XT.  It costs a little less than
$2000, but gives you performance competetive with the earlier Crays
for performing cellular automata simulations (60 frames/sec, so the
simulations actually run in real-time).

  I should add a disclaimer here -- I've been using this board for a
few years now, and liked it so much that I'm now involved with the
company that is currently producing them.  But that was the order I
went in (i.e. I work with the company because I like the board; it's
not that I like the board because I work for the company). :-)

  Write to:
     Automatrix, Inc.
     P.O. Box 196
     Rexford, NY 12148
or you could try their e-mail path:
     ...!crdgw1!automtrx!campc   or  automtrx!campc@crdgw1.ge.com


  They're producing a board called CAM-PC, which is a souped-up
version of CAM-6.  CAM-6 is described in "Cellular Automata Machines:
A New Environment for Modeling", by Toffoli and Margolus (MIT Press,
1987).

-- 
Dave Hiebeler                      | Internet: hiebeler@heretic.lanl.gov
Complex Systems Group              | Bitnet: userF3JL@rpitsmts
MS B213, Theoretical Division      | UUCP: crdgw1!automtrx!hiebeler
Los Alamos National Laboratory  /  Los Alamos, NM 87545  USA