info on 4D/240 crunching and compilers

[Mark Galassi]

We are debating hotly whether to purchase an SGI 240 with 4
MIPS R3000 processors.  One of the attractions is the parallelizing
FORTRAN compiler (yes, we are scientists and there are still some
who program in FORTRAN; sigh).

I came across a report that the parallelizing FORTRAN (what was it,
power FORTRAN or super FORTRAN or whatever) was kind of flaky,
and that the ordinary compilers only worked well without optimization
(this is on the 4 processor machine).

Could someone comment on the soundness of the SGI 4D/240 for number
crunching purposes?  We are only slightly interested in the graphics
capabilities:  we want a cruncher first of all.

-- 
    {These opinions are mine, and should be everybody else's :-)}
                            Mark Galassi
                        rosalia at mozart.UUCP     rosalia at sunysbnp.BITNET
                        rosalia at noether.UUCP    rosalia at noether.sunysb.edu