What's New Research Resources
A graphics visualization lab funded by a generous grant from Hewlett-Packard Corporation
Last updated on May 30th, 1997
This web page contains information on the computer facilities available at the HP Biomedical Engineering Lab. The computer lab features a multiprocessor server, graphics workstations, RAID storage, large mass storage via an optical disk jukebox, and color laser printing. The HP BEL also provides software for application development in C/C++, FORTRAN, and VisualWorks Smalltalk, HP's OpenGL graphics libraries (Starburst) in addition to other standard programs in a UNIX programing environment. At the bottom of this page is a description of technical support for the lab, and system policy for lab use.
The HP BEL contains the following hardware:
  • HP 9000 K-Class multi-processor server. This server features 4 high-speed RISC processors, 512 MB RAM and is connected directly to the optical jukebox, RAIDs, tape drive, and an uninterrupted power supply (UPS). The UPS provides a 15 minute backup power supply in the case of a power outage or other electrical problems. This server is ideal for processing intensive applications or programs which can take advantage of parallel processing. The server is named davinci.
  • Six HP 9000 Series graphics workstations. Each of these workstations has a 120 MHz RISC processor, 128 MB RAM, and is connected to the HP server. All of these workstations are equipped with HP Visualize graphics hardware; three of these machines feature Visualize-24 graphics accelerator cards, and coming soon to the lab is an additional Visualize-48 graphics workstation. Each machine has 4 GB of local storage, a CD-ROM drive, and 20" color monitor. The machines are named: degas, picasso, vangogh, cezanne, renoir, and dali.
  • HP SureStore Optical Jukebox. This optical jukebox provides mass storage of 330 GB in the way of read-writeable magneto-optical disks. The jukebox currently handles 128 2.6 GB optical disks, and is expandable to manage twice this number, for a total of 660 GB of disk space. This device is fully automated, allowing for automatic loading and unloading of any disk to one of six read/write heads.
  • 2 HP Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks (RAIDs) in a hot-swappable configuration. The RAIDs give a total of 16 GB of level-5 storage, and the entire array is exapndable to twice this size with additional hard drives. The RAID is connected to the server, and is accessible by all of the HP workstations. The RAID system is also connected to another UPS.
  • HP Color LaserJet 5M. This network printer is capable of printing high quality color and black and white images. Access to this printer is limited to the HP lab workstations, only. The printer is named gutenberg.
  • HP SureStore Multi-Tape Drive. This 4mm DAT drive is capable of holding up 8 tapes simultaneously, allowing users to automatically switch between tapes and provides a regular backup mechanism for data on the HP BEL system.
  • The workstations are currently capable of 10BT/100BT on an internal network, connected via an HP Advanced Stack Hub. We are currently connected to the Computer Science Department network at 10BT, but are looking into a 100BT connection to the department or moving the entire system to an ATM network for faster data transfer speeds.
We currently have the following software installed on the computer in the lab, in addition to HP's standard HP-UX software:
  • HP-UX v10.10 (This will be replaced in the next few weeks with release v10.20)
  • Common Desktop Environment (CDE)
  • Digitalk ParcPlace VisualWorks v2.51
  • GemStone Object-Orieneted Database Server & Clients v5.0
  • HP's SoftBench application development environment (C/C++, FORTRAN)
  • Starburst, HP's OpenGL graphics library
  • HP'S PowerShade graphics application
  • Netscape Navigator v3.01
  • X11R5 & Motif libraries
  • TeTex (other versions of TeX to follow)
  • Adobe Acrobat reader, v3.0
  • xmcd (CD audio player software)
  • bash v2.0, tcsh v6.06 user shells
  • tvtwm (Tom's Virtual TWM)
  • pine e-mail client
  • GNU gcc/g++ compilers, v2.7.1
  • GNU gdb debugger, v4.1.6
  • GNU emacs v19.34
  • GNU bison v1.25, flex v2.5.4
  • GNU make v3.7.4
  • GNU xv v3.10a
  • GNU utilities (enscript, gawk, gunzip, gzip, ghostview, etc.)
All of these programs can be found in /usr/net/bin. We hope to make more software available (Tcl/Tk, etc.), and to keep most of this software up to date. If there are any packages or programs which you would like us to install to /usr/net, please download an the software for the HP environment and e-mail us with the details.

Full documentation for the HP-UX OS is available online and there are also several copies of the manuals in the lab. We also have additional O'Reilly & Associates (ORA) books on gawk, sed, etc. and X Library programming references. Please note that these manuals are NOT to be removed from the lab. Help pages for the above software can be found in /usr/net/man.

The HP BEL is maintained on a volunteer basis by graduate students from the KMeD Research Group in Computer Science. The two system administrators for the lab are David B. Johnson and Alex Bui.

If you would like software to be installed on the system, please already have the software already available (i.e. don't tell us you need Maple installed unless you have Maple). To speed the process up, if the installation requires compiling code, if you can compile the code in your home directory to ensure that the libraries and paths are set correctly, then we can move your local copy to the share /usr/net directories.

As we are not full time system administrators, the amount of help we can give BEL users is limited. People who want to use the system should already be familiar with UNIX, or have access to people within their research group who can help them. If in using the system, you believe that there is something critically wrong (e.g. a missing library, an incorrect configuration), then please feel free to contact us, and we will try to get to the problem when time allows. However, we cannot help you with the day-to-day use of the lab (program development, use of the above software, etc.).

Currently, we do not have a formal usage policy for the lab, though we expect that this will develop over time. If you need access to the disk space provided by the RAID or the optical jukebox, we can readily allocate space, as required. We expect that users of the BEL will use the lab in a reasonable, responsible manner - the lab was not meant for playing network DOOM, nor as a super-duper web surfing workstation. If we find that people are starting to abuse their privileges in the lab, we will be forced to place restrictions.

The two things that we are asking people to do:
  • Do not LOCK your workstation. The default user configuration locks the workstation if it is left unattended for several minutes (the screensaver goes on, and a user's password is required to unlock the workstation). If you intend to leave the workstation for a couple of minutes (15 minutes or less), then there's no problem. However, if you intend on being away from the workstation for a longer amount of time, please logout. The number of resources available in the lab are limited. Moreover, the screensaver/locking mechanism in HP-UX has a tendency to slow all processes on machine, thus causing problems for other users. If we discover that someone has left their machine and it is locked, we will automatically unlock it and log the user out.
  • As the system is still being tweaked to handle a larger number of people and more software, we ask that users do not maintain "local" copies of their own software. For example, if you download elm for use on the system, please share it with other people! We will be happy to take your copy of elm and place it in /usr/net for everyone else to use. Ultimately, this policy will make more disk space available for everyone as there will be less wasted space due to redundancy.
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