I am pleased to attend the 1992 FGCS international conference. In particular I 
am happy to have had the chance to visit with many members of ICOT and discuss 
the evaluation of the FGCS project with various industrial representatives. I thank 
Iwata-san for making local arrangements and Uchida-san for his continued interest 
in Argonne and its research programs. Nitta-san was very helpful in explaining the 
demonstration programs, and I am pleased to have had his assistance. Yamazaki-san 
and Ishihara-san, both Japanese industry representatives on the ICOT technical board 
and ICOT staff, have been open about discussing the future of ICOT and the role of 
basic research in Japan. 

My involvement with the FGCS project began in 1986 with activities and partic-
ipation in the Gigalips project, which was organized by Argonne and inspired by the 
FGCS project. In 1988, I participated in the joint ANL/ICOT NSF workshop in AI 
held at Argonne. This workshop gave me the opportunity to begin to understand the 
hardware and software aspects of the FGCS project. Later, as part of an ANL and 
ICOT joint project, I visited ICOT several times and was involved in installing PSI-II 
workstations and network connections at Argonne and in developing programs in KL1. 

Too many people were involved in my various visits to mention them all. However, 
I mention especially Ichiyoshi-san and Susaki-san for their friendship and hospitality, 
and Furuichi-san and Minami-san for offering to let me visit their homes. All of my 
interactions with ICOT staff have been highly positive. I have enjoyed my interactions 
immensely and wish in some fashion to continue these personal relationships. 

In the remainder of this report I focus my comments on the topics raised in my 
evaluation presentation. 

Evaluation of the FGCS Project. 

First I want to make the point that the Western view of computer research and 
development processes is possibly quite different from that in Japan and this difference 
in view is largely responsible for the difficulty in assessing the significance of the FGCS 
project accomplishments. I believe that there is confusion about whether the FGCS 
project was a basic research project or an advanced development project. 


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