SVFIG
Saturday, December 20th
Third Saturday
at
Stanford University
Terman Engineering Center
Room 556

Due to the holiday closure of Cogswell College, we will not be able to enjoy our normal meeting rooms in December.

Terman Engineering Center can be found on these maps - just search for Terman: Google map or Searchable Stanford Campus Map

There is open parking on weekends. Park in any A or C or metered space.

Take the elevator to the 5th floor. Walk across the foyer and up the ramp just to the left of the glassed-in office. Room 556 is at the top of the ramp - entrance on the left.

Bring something warm to wear in the classroom as the heat will be off!


If you would like to have meeting announcements e-mailed to you, send the message Subscribe SVFIG Meeting Agenda to: George Perry

Wireless Internet access is anticipated (though not guaranteed) at Stanford, so bring your wi-fi enabled laptop.

Meeting Agenda for December 2008


10:30 --- Coffee and a Chat

11:00 --- Matrix Multiplication in a Massively Parallel Processor Array - CH Ting
"My goal is to perform matrix multiplications of two 1000x1000 matrices. I think this can be done very fast if I have a processor array with 1000x1000 processing elements and sufficient memory in each element. I need suggestions on how to invert matrices and diagonalize matrices (eigen values and eigen vectors). So far, I have not found good ways to solve linear equation problems with a large processor array. All available algorithms work well only in serial operations."

Noon --- Lunch
Due to the holiday Stanford campus closure, we may be carpooling to lunch venues on University Ave in downtown Palo Alto.

13:30 --- Introductions, Announcements, Rumors, and Random Access

13:45 --- SVFIG Treasurer's Report - John Rible

14:00 --- Forth Day 2008 Lessons Learned - All in attendance

14:30 --- RoboDevelopment Conference & Exposition Slide Show - Dave Jaffe
Dave will present a slide show of this year's hobbyist / trade expo.

15:00 --- IntellaSys Chips - John Rible
"I'm proposing that SVFIG buy 50-100 bare chips to resell (may not be the proper wording for sales taxes, etc.) with enough mark-up to cover costs of mailing. IntellaSys (CEO Chet Brown) has agreed to sell them to SVFIG at $20 each if we agree to limit any one person to 10 or less and accept responsibility for all support / return issues (that's why IntellaSys is selling through distributors). This would occur in January, after the chips have been tested."

Kevin's comments:

"We'll discuss and decide! $20 * (50 chips) = $1000"

"I'm not sure we'd really sell this many so if you aren't going to be at the meeting, express your interest NOW! Let me know how many you want either by posting to the SVFIG list or directly to me at: forther-at-comcast-dot-net "

16:00 --- Adjourn

How you can help SVFIG:

  • Bring your speaker and topic suggestions to every meeting!
  • Your input for and participation in next year's Forth Day is always welcomed.

Please register your interest for these topics:

  • Viewing of Analog by Design shows hosted by Bob Pease - list of shows
  • The world's second Babbage Engine is coming to town. Maybe we can have a meeting at the Computer History Museum to take a look.
  • Review and discussion of recent postings on news:comp.lang.forth
  • Review and discussion of interesting Forth projects and many files at the Yahoo Win32Forth Group

If you have anything you'd like to talk about for the December meeting,
please contact Kevin Appert.

Meeting Notes