platforms. In the application areas, many application packages that are routinely used in industry (e.g., NASTRAN) were initially developed for supercomputers. These technologies were developed in a complex interaction involving researchers at universities, the national laboratories, and companies. The reasons for such a spillover effect are obvious and still valid nowadays: Supercomputers are at the cutting edge of performance. In order to push performance they need to adapt new hardware and software solutions ahead of mainstream computers. And the high performance levels of supercomputers enable new applications that can be developed on capability platforms and then used on an increasingly broader set of cheaper platforms as hardware performance continues to improve.