These proceedings are divided into three main sections: the first contains 13 overview papers; the second describes three parallel sessions; and the third consists of research papers from industry. One can get an idea of the scope of the conference and the international character of present-day high-energy physics from the following list of the titles and author affiliations of the overview papers. (Except in the discussion of the Denelcor Heterogeneous Element Processor, the abbreviation HEP means high-energy physics.)
Trends in Computing for HEP (P. Zanella, CERN (European Commission for Nuclear Research))
2. New Architectures (L. O. Hertzberger, Univ. of Amsterdam)
3. Research Issues in Distributed Operating Systems (A. S. Tannenbaum and R. van Renesse, Vrije Univ., Amsterdam)
4. Trends in Languages for Embedded Systems (M. Boasson, Hollandse Signalapparaten BV)
5. Real-Time System Architectures (D. M. Sendall, CERN)
6. Trends in Local Area Networks (E. B. Spratt, Univ. of Kent)
7. Trends in Wide Area Networks (H. C. Kirkman, Univ. of London)
8. Barriers in HEP Networkiong (J. Prevost, Saclay)
9. Two Recent Supercomputers, the Cray-2 and the SX-2 (T. Bloch, Centre de Calcul Vectoriel pour la Recherche, Ecole Polytechnique)
10. Alternatives in High Volume HEP Computing (R. Mount, California Institute of Technology)
11. Data Storage--Where Do We Store Terabytes of Data? (E. Freytag, DESY)
12. Requirements for Databases in HEP (J. C. Hart, Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory, UK)
13. Future Plans for HEP Computing in the U.S. (J. Ballam, Stanford Univ.)
The task of a reviewer has seldom been better stated than by D. O. Williams, author of the resume of embedded systems presentations:“Otherwise, after listening to seven hours of concentrated, high-powered talks you risk to discover, like me, that:
“You know even less than you suspected about the subject.
“Since you are talking to a large audience, and you might want to stay friends with some of them, you cannot get away with some of the facile one-line comments that you make over a beer.
“You cannot attend some talks that you would find very interesting, since they are in parallel sessions.
“And finally you do not get much sleep the night before you have to speak.”
The parallel sessions covered networking in HEP, embedded systems (defined as processing mechanisms that are integral parts of larger systems and perform predetermined tasks therein), and vector and parallel processing. The four industrial research papers published in the proceedings are two on parallel processing, one on vectorization of a Monte Carlo code, and one on a distributed real-time simulation system.
This book should be of interest to a much larger audience than the high-energy physics community.
