John Schmuhl reports on FB: I had the honor of managing the Cray-2 supercomputer site at the US Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center in Warren, Michigan. Ours was Serial Number SN2014.
The Cray-2 4 cpu 256 GBytes DRAM was installed in the summer and fall of 1987, went online in January 1988, operated until the middle of 1996 and was de-installed in August 1998. Afterwards the computer and part of the cooling tower were displayed in the headquarters lobby for a while. The Cray-2 cost $17 million and the site prep cost $5 million in 1987 dollars.
Many fond memories but also sadness when it was de-installed.
John Schmuhl
The Cray-2 4/512. Not shown are the system console, Cray DD-49 disk drives, Xerox page printer, tape drive and the mammoth motor generators. A small IBM mainframe (I don’t recall the model) was part of the configuration. It worked in conjunction with the peripherals but was eliminated after a short time. Also, a DEC VAX 8800 was part of the configuration. Later, a StorageTek 4400 tape silo was added.Cray engineers de-installing the Cray-2. I was told ours was the second to last de-installed.Moving the de-installed Cray-2. The beast weighed 3,500 pounds. Jim Tennessen Adds : Looks like Gary Spilde and Randy FacklamFluorinert plumbing and power lines for peripherals from the de-installed Cray-2.Souvenir. Rah, Rah, Rah, Go Cray!Cabling, power lines and components from underneath the floor from the de-installed Cray-2.Souvenir. Cray-2 memory module from Serial Number 14.The StorageTek 4400 tape silo. That’s a SGI workstation in front of the silo and next to the Xerox page printer.Souvenirs. STK tape cartridges.
From Cray Chips 10 March 1988 – Systems having entered the acceptance testing period as of February 29 are
CRAY-2 Serial 2014 at the U.S. Army Tank Command Base in Warren, Michigan, and CRAY X-MP Serial 201 at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland.
