ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Tuesday, May 14, 1996                  TAG: 9605140047
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: C-4  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE (AP)
SOURCE: JAMES SCHULTZ THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 

LITTLE COMPUTERS COULD BORROW BIG BRAINS

THE SOFTWARE called Legion could, its developers say, let your everyday PC harness the power of hundreds of giant supercomputers.

Doctors could examine patients and their diagnostic tests from anywhere on the globe.< People at home would have instant access to huge digital film libraries.< From their laboratories, scientists could monitor, in detail, the globe's environmental health from a network of satellites.

Calculations that now take days could take minutes.

If you think the breakthrough software known as Legion sounds too good to be true, hold the pessimism.

``This isn't pie-in-the-sky. I'm very excited,'' said Dennis Gannon, a professor of computer science at Indiana University. ``Legion is the avant-garde of a vast movement. Industry will be just inches behind this research. Within a year after Legion is up and running, there will be commercial versions.''

Legion's creator is Andrew Grimshaw, a University of Virginia associate professor of computer science. He says the program would essentially turn the Internet into a virtual super-supercomputer, allowing researchers, engineers, business people and ordinary folk to use their computers to harness the computational muscle of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of other computers around the world.

``There's a huge amount of computer power connected to the Net, most of which is unused at any one given time. If we're successful at this, we'll be able to borrow from other people's machines for a burst of computer power,'' explained computer expert William Wulf, AT&T professor of engineering and applied science at UVa who is working closely with Grimshaw on Legion development.

``If Legion succeeds, it may become as or more important than the World Wide Web. Trust me: It's going to be wonderful.''

By most counts, Legion is one of just four projects of its kind in the world. Two other efforts are under way in this country: one each in California and Illinois. The third, in the Netherlands, remains in the planning stage.

Legion is not being piggybacked onto existing software. As an original program, it is being tailored to work with a bewildering array of the several million institutional, business and government computers that together make up the Internet. A prototype version of Legion is already running at three of four National Science Foundation supercomputer centers.

Consumers and businesses should benefit from Legion's ability to turbocharge the computing power of work stations and personal computers. Routine access to super computational power could lower manufacturing design and material costs, for instance, drastically reducing the time required to move products to market and, ultimately, substantially slashing prices.

The Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico is funneling development funds to the UVa team, which includes five faculty members and 10 graduate students.

In all, says UVa's Wulf, the venture will cost several million dollars. It will take 18 months to two years to come up with what Grimshaw calls ``robust'' software.

John Reynders, a team leader in the Los Alamos Advanced Computer Laboratory, is among those convinced that Legion will conquer new territory.

``They're doing it right,'' he said. ``Grimshaw's team is focusing on a very good design. At this stage, it's very impressive.''

Grimshaw says he would like to have a ``usable'' Legion system in operation by March 1997, and a more refined version ready by the time two new National Science Foundation supercomputer centers open in October 1997. The final product, says Indiana University's Gannon, might spawn new generations of machines and programs so powerful that they begin to function as cells in a vast, virtual brain.

Gannon said: ``When all that software starts interacting on our behalf - and starts adapting to become more efficient in solving our problems - we'll see all sorts of interesting behaviors emerge. It becomes something almost biological.''

LENGTH: Medium:   80 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  AP. William Wulf, one of the professors developing 
          Legion software, said, ``If we're successful at this, we'll be able 
          to borrow from other people's machines for a burst of computer 
          power.''