Crays

I decided to start writing a Blog. Just a way for me to get some thoughts out of my system; most likely thoughts about software, and other things (absurdities, including software patents and perhaps politics if I get too upset reading the news one day). So here it is.

Here is a good link if you are like me fascinated by supercomputers, especially the ones "built by hand" from Seymour Cray and his team. It is a group of Cray fanatics (Crayons?) who collect old supercomputers from universities and research centers and put them back to life in a warehouse somewhere in Germany. They have many machines from Control Data, Cray, SGI and NEC. These machines are not up all the time because they wouldn't have enough money to pay the electricity bill, but most of them are accessible during the week-end. You can visit the computer room once a year. You can also get shell access to their machines, if you want to try a real vector processor. From the USA it is a bit slow but it works. Here is their CRAY Y-MP:



I read a good book about the life of Seymour Cray: The Supermen (nothing to do with David Bowie.). You won't learn a lot about computer architecture but rather about post-WW2 USA history and what not to do if you are an IT manager. Worth a read.



When Seymour learned that Apple had purchased a Cray to help them design the next Mac, he said "that is interesting, because I am using a Macintosh to design the next Cray".