Our group owns a number of computers that are designed for a variety of purposes, and has access to a much wider range of computers at Brown and elsewhere. We have three UNIX computers, one that runs HPUX and is attached to the gas-medium, high-pressure, rotary-shear rock deformation apparatus. The other two are IBM RS/6000 machines, Models 43P, running AIX that are used for a variety of data analysis and plotting purposes. We have a Gateway PC in the lab that is used for a variety of data analysis purposes and is normally attached to our CD writer for making archives of our experimental data. Two other PCs are used by Terry and by David Goldsby and some graduate students own PCs as well. We also have two Macs which we still use with a variety of older software and for access older data files that we generated before we mostly moved to PCs for our non-UNIX computing. However, other groups in the Geological Sciences Department use Macs extensively, and access to them is also available.
Within the Tectonophysics group at Brown, but outside of our lab there are many Sun and Silicon Graphics machines that can be used by my students. We also have many black and white printers, several color printers including two large format printers (for making posters, etc.), numerous scanners, a photo and 35 mm slide scanner, and a film recorder for making 35 mm slides from digital images. The Geological Sciences Department also has a new Computer Lab in the adjacent, recently constructed MacMillan Hall that is equipped with a cluster of Sun workstations that are available for a variety of uses, but is focused on use for GIS (Geographical Information System) and remote sensing images.
Brown has an IBM SP supercomputer with 24 nodes and 96 processors that we have free access to. We use this in our computer modeling of earthquakes. For this same purpose we also have access to much larger machines at the Maui Supercomputer Center through our involvement with the GEM (General Earthquake Models) group. As part of Brown's supercomputer facility we have a CAVE (Computer Aided Visualization Environment), an immersive environment to aid in 3D graphics visualization, run both by Silicon Graphics machines and by IBM RS/6000 machines. The CAVE allows one to stand and view/move-through 3D models that are projected onto the walls and floor. The perspective for the scenes can be controlled by a head-set worn by the user, by a hand-held fly-through device, or by gloves which allow one to manipulate objects in the space.