The slides from a chat with some Cray-2 Engineers that was hosted by CMoA on Star wars day 2021.
The Cray-2 is a fascinating and innovative machine that deserves a better write-up.
Four best features of the Cray-2
• Density of electronics, it’s a very small machine compared to contemporaries.
• Speed of processor using a 4 nano second clock – way ahead of it time
• Size of main memory – up to 30 times size of Cray-1 or Cray X-MP – could run problems that would bog down on other systems. Very good at CFD codes and large interactive workloads.
• First Cray with direct interactive access for users along side batch work. Due to using Unix as base for Unicos operating system
Read more about the Coolant reservoir design change here.
