Les Davis (1930 — 2023)

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It has recently been announced (December 2023) that Les Davis has passed away aged 93. An early and foundational influence on Cray Research Les worked closely with Seymour Cray and John Rollwagon to deliver the vision of supercomputing.

Lester ‘T’ Les Davis was a senior engineer at Cray Research. As an early employee he worked closely with Seymour Cray both at CDC and on the first Cray systems.  A much liked and effective character that was very diligent in completing and shipping working products to customers whist supporting other engineers.

Read more in this article … The Ultimate Team Player Les Davis    and in the book The Supermen pp119

Also interviewed by the Computer History Museum —  Les David CHM interview 102657915-05-01-acc

Les Davis also seen in the Documentary “Cray Research – A story of the Supercomputer” Via YouTube.

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I was working on YMP 001 for a benchmark and after getting woken up 3 days in a row after working all night by housekeeping at the Flame I got kicked out as I kind of lost it. I went back to work and about 6AM the next day Les came over and asked me how it was going, I updated him, he handed me a key to the Indian Head motel and said they would not wake me and to come back tomorrow. Les cared about everyone and always did the right thing for the right reason!
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