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From: mrc@CAM.UNISYS.COM (Ken Leonard --> ken@oahu.mcl.unisys.com@sdcjove.cam.unisys.com)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Horizontal pipelining
Message-ID: <382@sdcjove.CAM.UNISYS.COM>
Date: Thu, 5-Nov-87 09:23:10 EST
Article-I.D.: sdcjove.382
Posted: Thu Nov  5 09:23:10 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 8-Nov-87 03:29:59 EST
References: <201@PT.CS.CMU.EDU> <8801@utzoo.UUCP> <8758@shemp.UCLA.EDU> <2525@mmintl.UUCP>
Organization: Unisys McLean Research Center
Lines: 38
Keywords: multiple users
Summary: HEP machine croaked due to mismanagement, not misengineering

The HEP was (is? are the few that were built still running?) a damnfine
machine for several interesting classes of problems--especially problems
which can be cast in a reduction-like paradigm.  It was also a very interesting
cryptanalysis engine.
 
As a box, it did not so much "suffer" from "bad engineering" (the engineering
was damnfine considering the screwball funding or lack thereof) as from
corporate mismangagement.

First, the company brought in new "leverage", "market-oriented" management
just after the first couple of production HEP-1s were delivered.  Synonyms:
leverage==>what Boone Pickens and Carl Icahn are good at;
market-oriented==>sell the sizzle, not the steak.

Second, the new management spent all their working funds on managing, hiring
more managers, and putting on shows to impress themselves--rather than on
evolving the proof-of-concept HEP-1 into a really workable HEP-2.

The HEP-1 never lived up to the promise of the HEP concept because it was
never really intended or expected to do so, it !did! prove the value of the
concept and (to a few folk) open the door to doing some new things.  The HEP-2
would have more than met the promise if it had not been starved and
bludgeoned to death before it was ever really born.

The last I heard of HEP's daddy, Burton Smith, he was at the Nat'l 
Supercomputer Center, still (at least tentatively) pondering how
son-of-HEP might be brought into existence.

Anyone who wants to learn how to totally destroy a concept and a company at
the same time as (%&^%$%^&*&^&^$%&&^*&%)-ing some fine people, should carefully
study the history of Denelcor and the HEP.

Anyone who wants to learn how to come up with a better idea should do likewise,
and also talk to Burton.

Anyone who wants to get rich while making one heck of a technological splash
should buy the rights to HEP into an intelligent organization and get
their tail in gear.