Design and implementation of a supercomputer frame buffer system

A 512-by-512-pixel by 8-bits-per-pixel frame buffer has been designed, constructed, and installed on a 48-Mb/s I/O channel of a Cray X-MP 4/16 supercomputer. This project was undertaken to test whether such a system would be useful and, if so, how it would be used. Supporting software provides the ability to convert vector graphics description files into raster format, to show raster movies interactively, and to show vector files by real-time conversion from vector to raster formats. It has been shown that real-time animations in an interactive supercomputer environment is feasible and useful with this system.<
>