The representation of floating point numbers and the “accuracy”, repeatability and reversibility of arithmetic operations has long be a topic of discussion amongst Cray customer and scientific users. The Cray machines up to the C90 range used 64 bit Cray floating point arithmetic. When representing the long smooth curve of real numbers using digital bits […]
Cray Floating point numbers Read More »
When you pay a few million $£€ for a supercomputer you expect great service. Here are a couple of service snapshots: An article about the introduction of the on-site module tester for XMP boards. From Volume 6 No 1 – Jan/Feb 1986 of Cray Interface The on site testing and repair procedures are described
Cray System Service snapshots 1989 and 1996 with remote support information. Read More »
A few links to videos of interest to Cray-History visitors. Most of these are created by the Computer History Museum. What’s All This About Gallium Arsenide?, lecture by Seymour Cray at Super computing 1988 includes industry history. The CRAY T3D Massively Parallel Processing System, lecture by Stephen Nelson and Steven Oberlin Cray Research – A
Links to Videos of Interest Read More »
The site has a couple of collections of public press releases available here. The first set covers 1993 to 1996 and the second set from March 2002 to Feb 2008. Lets us know if you can fill in the gaps. All documents were obtained from publicly available sources. 1993 to 1996 List CEA_ORDER.950424.txt
Cray press release listing Read More »
Unicos is the operating system(s) that enabled application software and users to exploit Cray hardware. Unicos provided a Unix based envrionment with many extensions needed for systems with multiple users and a complex workloads. Unicos provided added security, resource control, programming languages, data management features as well as processing accounting. Unicos versions (from Wikipedia) Cray
Unicos and other operating systems Read More »
Cray Research focused on hardware but also made system and application software. Customers like to buy “a solution to a problem” and are rarely fussed by the actual technology used to deliver that solution. Alongside the need for developing language and systems software unique to the special Cray Hardware application software was developed. By having
Cray Software Applications Read More »
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
Les Davis (1930 — 2023) Read More »
These two posters appeared side by side in Cray Channels V13_N4 as centre folds. Also distributed as wall posters. These two machines, at the opposite ends of the Cray performance spectrum, nevertheless less ran the same UNICOS operating systems and compiler environments. The EL often appeared at larger Cray sites acting as a software development
EL and C90 Poster Centerfolds Read More »
We would be very grateful If you have missing information or contributions / suggestions / stories or pictures for the site. Contact US Please Post an update on this page or email to webmaster@cray-history.net – Add XMP to Email subject line to avoid the spam traps. Acknowledgments This site contains the work and effort compiled from
Contact Us – To contribute updates, corrections and stories Read More »
The first of a kind always holds special interest for historians and serial number one, the first Cray-1 computer system is no exception. Made in 1976 this machine, really just the prototype but proved it’s worth at 6 sites paving the way for early sales of Cray Research Supercomputers. Serial Number 1 World Traveller From Cray
The Chippewa Falls museum of Industry and Technology is of particular interest to followers of supercomputing technology. The museum located in home town of supercomputer maker Cray Research and holds the assets of the original Cray Corporate Computer museum. Included in the collection is Serial Number 1, the first Cray-1 supercomputer and Serial Number 101
The Following appeared as Article 9037 on HPC wire on 27th March 1995 recording the end of the Cray-3 project and Cray Computer Corporation. CASH-STARVED CRAY COMPUTER CLOSES, SEEKS CHAPTER 11 Mar. 27 NEWS FLASH by Norris Parker Smith, Editor at Large HPCwire ============================================================================= Why did Seymour Cray’s company, Cray Computer Corporation (CCC), descend into
CASH-STARVED CRAY COMPUTER CLOSES, SEEKS CHAPTER 11 – March 27th 1995 Read More »
A great book about the early days ( up to 1995 ) Link on Amazon. “The Story of Seymour Cray and the Technical wizards behind the supercomputer” The Supermen Book cover Cover Blerb After a rare speech at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, in 1976, programmers in the audience had suddenly
The Supermen by Charles J. Murray Read More »
References to the the book in Cray internal literature. Searching in the archives found these mentions NEWSLETTER-Gigaflop_Gazette-Volume_6_Number_11-November_27_1991 The employee gift given in January of 1987 anticipated Cray Research’s 15th anniversary and was a sample of the Lee Friedlander book Cray at Chippewa Falls from NEWSLETTER-Gigaflop_Gazette-Volume_6_Number_13-December_27_1991 The company’s fifteenth anniversary was noted by a
“Cray at Chippewa Falls” Photo Book by Lee Friedlander Read More »
