U.S. COMMERCE REVISES RULES FOR EXPORTS OF HIGH-PERFORMANCE COMPUTERS

   The U.S. Commerce Department has released its revised rules for the export of high-performance computers.
   Export controls will be raised from general-purpose microprocessors with
control levels of 1,200 MTOPS (million theoretical operations per second)
to 1,900 MTOPS. The new rules take effect immediately.
   "These business computers have become commodities, and next year, U.S.
and foreign vendors are expected to sell 5 million of them," said President
Clinton earlier this month.
   Commerce will continue to maintain controls on higher performance
computers sold in small quantities for high-end computer applications.
Computers with military applications will also be closely monitored.
   Additional regulatory changes related to high performance computers will
be published later this year.