Cray Computer Systems
CDC 160A Computer 
Seymour Cray noted in a 1975 address that he designed the 160A in one week. Seymour’s family referred to this design as the " Flu Computer", because it was designed while Cray was home ill.
Even though it sold for about $500,000 fully equipped, the CDC 160A might be considered one of the first “personal computers.” It first owned by the U.S. Air Force and was later acquired as a behavioral science tool by Dr. Karl Smith at the University of Wisconsin Behavioral Cybernetics laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin.
Dr. Smith noted that he used it for the first real-time analog-to-digital-to-analog system to study motor sensory feed back control. He claimed that his experiments to invert, reverse, and delay the retinal feedback of eye movements discredited and negated a century of superficial research. He considered the CDC 160A to be “the most outstanding scientific device ever built.”
It uses the same basic technology as the 1604 but was designed for dedicated applications such as production control. Examples of early applications are control of Linotypes and lathes.
CDC 1604 Computer
The first machine produced by Control Data Corporation (CDC) in Minneapolis, MN in 1961. This is one of the first solid state computers and was the most powerful in its day.
Applications included real-time data processing, weapon-system control, solution of large-scale scientific problems, engineering and commercial applications, and industrial processes control. The 1604 compputer is also one of the first machines to feature compilers and “standard software.”
The 1604 had a clock speed of 5 microseconds. Peripheral devices included paper and magnetic tape, teletype machines, punched cards, and line printers.
CDC 7600 Computer
The CDC 7600 was announced in 1969. It was sold to many of the same customers as the 6000 series machines. Serial No. 3 on display, was assembled in Chippewa Falls and shipped to the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in 1970 for use in nuclear research.
The 7600 featured a two-level memory (Large Core Memory or LCM and Small Core Memory or SCM). Examples of these memory matrices are in the display cabinet. The clock speed for the 7600 was 27.5 nanoseconds. About forty 7600 computers were eventually sold before CDC replaced the 7600 with the CYBER series.
The first operating system for the 7600 was SCOPE 1. This was later replaced by SCOPE 2, which was subsequently renamed NOS/BE. It ran a variety of Fortran compilers and the CDC COMPASS assembler. Customers included the U.S. government, universities, scientific laboratories, and private industry such as automobile and aeronautical manufacturers.
CDC 8600 Computer
The 8600 featured multiplayer boards similar to those later used in the Cray-2 system, The 8600 had pins in the Z-plane, that is, vertically from board to board; it was the first CDC machine to use an 8-bit ASCII code and a 64-bit word. Its clock speed was to have been 8 nanoseconds.
CRAY X-MP Computer Systems
In 1982, Cray Research announced the CRAY X-MP, its first multiprocessor computer. With their 9.5 ns clocks, the two CPUs for the CRAY X-MP system were significantly faster than those for the CRAY-1 system. The IOS, having proven its worth, became a standard feature. SN 101, the first CRAY X-MP system built, is on display. The first 4-processor version, fondly known as Abner, was originally blue with velvet cushions. One of the cushions is on display. These blue skins and cushions were replaced by red vinyl skins and cushions when the system was sent to the Cray Research Computer Center in Mendota Heights, MN.
Replaced in the CRI product line 1988 by the Cray Y-MP series of computer systems, the CRAY X-MP series of computer systems was one of Cray Research’s most popular products to date, with 189 produced.
Operating systems used on CRAY X-MP systems include COS; CTSS (The Cray Time-Sharing System developed by customers at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory and the Los Alamos National Laboratory), and UNICOS based on UNIX System V technology.
CRAY-2 Computer System
The CRAY-2 system was the first computer to have modules immersed directly in a liquid fluorocarbon coolant, which maintains the computer at a constant temperature of 70 degrees Fahrenheit. The coolant, called Fluorinert liquid was sometimes used as a human blood substitute during surgery. In CRAY-2 systems, the coolant flowed directly over the modules and was pumped to a heat exchanger. The reservoir was used for cycling the coolant and removing the coolant for maintenance. Later models had a sealed reservoir . A bottle of water and a bottle of fluorcarbon are included with the display so that visitors can note that while they appear the same, fluorocarbon liquid is much heavier than water.
In addition to its innovative cooling technology, some of the significant features of the CRAY-2 system were its extremely high speed clock (4.1 ns), 4 central processors, and its memory size—up to 512 million words or 4 billion bytes of immediately accessible main memory.
Twenty-nine 4-processor CRAY-2 systems were built before the line was discontinued. In addition, two one-processor prototype systems were built and one 8-processor system was built.
The CRAY-2 system is the first Cray Research computer and first large-scale mainframe computer to feature an operating system (UNICOS) based on the UNIX System V technology. Portability was one of the foremost reasons for choosing a system based on UNIX because of the different architectures used for the Cray X-MP and CRAY-2 systems. Hardware performance was not compromised by software as well. The equity that Cray Research and customers had in software needed to be protected without restricting the creativity of design engineers. Up until this time, customers had always assumed that they or the vendor would redo an operating system whenever a new supercomputer such as the CRAY-2 system was introduced. Not only was this practice increasingly expensive as the size and complexity of operating systems grew, but also the development time required delayed the efficient use of new hardware by 3 to 5 years.
CRAY XMS System
The design of this instruction-compatible machine was started by Supertek before it was acquired by Cray Research in 1990. This machine heralded a significant change in marketing strategy for Cray Research because, for the first time, CRI responded to the challenge of the minisupercomputer vendors.
The CRAY XMS system featured a 55-ns clock period and 16 million words of memory. It was compact (requiring only 16 inches by 22 inches of floor space) air cooled, and easily installed. It ran the UNICOS operating system. The CRAY XMS system was the first CRI computer system to be supported by removable disk drives.
Serial 5011, on display, was used for marketing purposes in the Eastern Region. It traveled for over 80,000 miles during its short working life and appeared at many trade shows.
CRAY Y-MP Series of Computer Systems
The CRAY Y-MP series of computer systems was introduced in 1988. They are the first CRI computers to feature as many as 8 processors and to take advantage of the new packaging technology. Over 200 CRAY Y-MP systems have been built, making it CRI’s most popular model before its place in the product line was surplanted in 1991 by the CRAY C 90 series of computer systems. In January of 1989, NCAR analysts, using a CRAY Y-MP system, broke the gigaflop barrier for the first time. SN 1001, the first CRAY Y-MP system, was used in the Cray Research Corporate Computer Center and was placed on display in April, 1995 when it was retired from service.
The CPUs of the CRAY Y-MP system are in the rectangular mainframe; one of the curved arms houses two I/O subsystems and the other houses an SSD solid-state storage device.
UNIVAC Scientific Computer (1103)
The first machine that many of Cray Research’s founders worked on was the UNIVAC 1103 scientific computer designed by a company in Saint Paul called Electronic Research Associated (ERA). The 1103 computer weighed about 14 tons, and the mainframe occupied 612 sq ft.
1101 Computer
1101 computer, was originally known as the Atlas and was designed for military applications. Frank Mullaney, the first Chairman of the Board for Cray Research, was a design engineer for this machine, which was announced in 1950. Mullaney noted in an address to the IEEE in December of 1991 that the machine, which used 2,700 vacuum tubes was operationally available 86 per cent of the time. He noted that the machine, which was delivered to the government in December of 1950, was unpacked, installed, and tested in only 8 days.
The 1101 and 1103 were both cooled with water-cooled air. Logic circuits used vacuum tubes and to a very limited degree, “crystal diodes.” The 1101 had a word size of 24 bits, and the 1103 had a word size of 36 bits. Direct access memory on the 1103 was originally 1,024 words of CRT and 16,384 words of magnetic drum storage. The CRT storage was replaced by ferrite core storage on later machines. There was no operating system at the time. The clock speed for the 1103 was 2 microseconds. Input/output devices were punched paper tape, punched cards, magnetic drum storage, magnetic tape storage, and line printers. A design overview, memory matrix and instruction card for the 1103 are on display in a cabinet at our museum.
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