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Lot 78
THE ONLY EXISTING CRAY-4 SUPERCOMPUTER.
21 September 2015, 13:00 EDT
New YorkSold for US$37,500 inc. premium
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THE ONLY EXISTING CRAY-4 SUPERCOMPUTER.
Complete Cray-4 processor, serial number 001, on one 4 x 5 x 3/8 inch 3-dimensional logic multi-board module with 90 electrical layers (each .33 inches). Module with pathways and connections in all 3 directions using unique barrel twist pins for 36,000 Z-axis inter-board connections; gallium arsenide semi-conductors.
WITH: Archive of documentation, including original marketing brochures for the Cray-4 & Cray-3 supercomputers, Cray Computer Corporation print-outs on Core Technologies, Gallium Arsenide, Printed Circuit Board Materials, and Software.
THE LAST SUPERCOMPUTER DESIGNED BY SEYMOUR CRAY, BEING SERIAL NUMBER 001, THE ONLY EXISTING CRAY-4.
Seymour Cray (1925-1996) was an electrical engineer and supercomputer architect. Known as "The Father of Supercomputers," he was one of the founders of Control Data Corporation, Cray Research, Cray Computer Corporation and SRC Computers. Seymour designed and developed the world's fastest computer systems — UNIVAC 1103, the CDC 1604, CDC 6600, CDC 7600, Cray-1, Cray-2, Cray-3 and his last processor, the Cray-4. The Cray-1, which boasted a world-record speed of 160 million floating-point operations per second, had an 8MB main memory, and could perform over a hundred million arithmetic operations per second was installed at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1976 at a cost of $8.8 million. Taking months to build, the Cray-1 had a distinctive "C" shape system, which was designed so that the integrated circuits could be placed closer together, with no wire in the system being longer than 4 feet. The Cray-1, which was over 6 feet tall, had a cylindrical base of 9 feet and contained 576 modules for the processor, was considered "small" at the time, and used a unique Freon Cooling System to remove heat. By comparison, the Cray-4 is about the size of a smallbook, contains the entire processor in one module – a size reduction of 500X.
Each subsequent system was a significant improvement over the previous, with the Cray-2, introduced in 1985, providing a tenfold increase in performance over the Cray-1. It was with the Cray-3 that Seymour Cray first introduced the gallium arsenide semiconductors, which were much faster than the silicon conductors used in other machines. Despite the remarkable innovations of the Cray-3, the system was not a commercial success. Development of the Cray-4, a substantial improvement over the Cray-3, began in 1995, but the Cray Computer Corporation ran out of money and filed for bankruptcy. Seymour Cray died a year later in a car accident, and was never able to see his final project to production.
Seymour Cray's impact on the history of computing cannot be overstated. Joel Birnbaum, former CTO of HP Corp said of him "It seems impossible to exaggerate the effect he had on the industry; many of the things that high performance computers now do routinely were at the furthest edge of credibility when Seymour envisioned them ... Seymour combined modesty, dedication, and brilliance with vision and an entrepreneurial spirit in way that places him high in the pantheon of great inventors in any field."
WITH: Archive of documentation, including original marketing brochures for the Cray-4 & Cray-3 supercomputers, Cray Computer Corporation print-outs on Core Technologies, Gallium Arsenide, Printed Circuit Board Materials, and Software.
THE LAST SUPERCOMPUTER DESIGNED BY SEYMOUR CRAY, BEING SERIAL NUMBER 001, THE ONLY EXISTING CRAY-4.
Seymour Cray (1925-1996) was an electrical engineer and supercomputer architect. Known as "The Father of Supercomputers," he was one of the founders of Control Data Corporation, Cray Research, Cray Computer Corporation and SRC Computers. Seymour designed and developed the world's fastest computer systems — UNIVAC 1103, the CDC 1604, CDC 6600, CDC 7600, Cray-1, Cray-2, Cray-3 and his last processor, the Cray-4. The Cray-1, which boasted a world-record speed of 160 million floating-point operations per second, had an 8MB main memory, and could perform over a hundred million arithmetic operations per second was installed at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1976 at a cost of $8.8 million. Taking months to build, the Cray-1 had a distinctive "C" shape system, which was designed so that the integrated circuits could be placed closer together, with no wire in the system being longer than 4 feet. The Cray-1, which was over 6 feet tall, had a cylindrical base of 9 feet and contained 576 modules for the processor, was considered "small" at the time, and used a unique Freon Cooling System to remove heat. By comparison, the Cray-4 is about the size of a smallbook, contains the entire processor in one module – a size reduction of 500X.
Each subsequent system was a significant improvement over the previous, with the Cray-2, introduced in 1985, providing a tenfold increase in performance over the Cray-1. It was with the Cray-3 that Seymour Cray first introduced the gallium arsenide semiconductors, which were much faster than the silicon conductors used in other machines. Despite the remarkable innovations of the Cray-3, the system was not a commercial success. Development of the Cray-4, a substantial improvement over the Cray-3, began in 1995, but the Cray Computer Corporation ran out of money and filed for bankruptcy. Seymour Cray died a year later in a car accident, and was never able to see his final project to production.
Seymour Cray's impact on the history of computing cannot be overstated. Joel Birnbaum, former CTO of HP Corp said of him "It seems impossible to exaggerate the effect he had on the industry; many of the things that high performance computers now do routinely were at the furthest edge of credibility when Seymour envisioned them ... Seymour combined modesty, dedication, and brilliance with vision and an entrepreneurial spirit in way that places him high in the pantheon of great inventors in any field."