Lesson plan

Encore Computer

Encore Computer Corporation was an American computer company independently active from 1983 to 1997. Based in Marlborough, Massachusetts, the company was an early pioneer in the parallel computing market. Although offering several system designs beginning in 1985, Encore was never as well known as other companies in this field such as Pyramid Technology, Alliant, and the most similar systems Sequent and FLEX. Encore was founded in 1983 by: Kenneth Fisher, former CEO of Prime Computer; Gordon Bell, an engineering vice president from Digital Equipment Corporation responsible for the development of the VAX; and, Henry Burkhardt III, co-founder of Data General and Kendall Square Research. Their goal was to build massively parallel machines from commodity processors; their first design, the Multimax, was released in September 1985. This was one of the first commercial designs to make use of bus snooping, allowing many processors to share the same memory efficiently.

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Article summary

Encore Computer Corporation was an American computer company independently active from 1983 to 1997. Based in Marlborough, Massachusetts, the company was an early pioneer in the parallel computing market. Although offering several system designs beginning in 1985, Encore was never as well known as other companies in this field such as Pyramid Technology, Alliant, and the most similar systems Sequent and FLEX. Encore was founded in 1983 by: Kenneth Fisher, former CEO of Prime Computer; Gordon Bell, an engineering vice president from Digital Equipment Corporation responsible for the development of the VAX; and, Henry Burkhardt III, co-founder of Data General and Kendall Square Research. Their goal was to build massively parallel machines from commodity processors; their first design, the Multimax, was released in September 1985. This was one of the first commercial designs to make use of bus snooping, allowing many processors to share the same memory efficiently.

Key claims

  1. date of foundation: 1983 — source: Wikipedia · confidence 0.95
  2. date of foundation: 1961 — source: Wikipedia · confidence 0.95
  3. release date: 1985 — source: Wikipedia · confidence 0.95
  4. release date: 1991 — source: Wikipedia · confidence 0.95

Discussion questions

  1. Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
  2. The record states that the date of foundation is "1983". What evidence would count against this claim?
  3. The record states that the date of foundation is "1961". What evidence would count against this claim?
  4. The record states that the release date is "1985". What evidence would count against this claim?
  5. The record states that the release date is "1991". What evidence would count against this claim?
  6. Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
  7. If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?

Bibliography

  1. Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1312887416

Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.