That S**t Cray-1 Think the Apple II was awesome? Meet the pinnacle of mid-70’s computing design, in aesthetics and performance. They just don’t make ‘em like this anymore do they? Let’s see you lie down and snooze on your iMac, eh? The Cray-1 was introduced in 1975, its c-shape housing thousands of early integrated circuits, each less powerful than what’s in even an average smartphone these days (but it was more powerful, because there so many). The bench, a favorite nap spot for tired programmers/make-out spot at geeky holiday parties, housed a freon cooling system so that those thousands of chips didn’t melt. I remember seeing one of the successors to the Cray-1 when I visited my dad’s lab as a kid in the 80’s. “What is this wrap-around bench computer that someone stole from the deck of the Enterprise?” I asked (that sounds like something I would ask anyway). It looked like a time portal with a sofa attached. I guess for $8 million bucks, adding a seat was the least they could do. Read more about the history of the Cray-1 and more early supercomputers here.
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That S**t Cray-1

Think the Apple II was awesome? Meet the pinnacle of mid-70’s computing design, in aesthetics and performance. They just don’t make ‘em like this anymore do they? Let’s see you lie down and snooze on your iMac, eh?

The Cray-1 was introduced in 1975, its c-shape housing thousands of early integrated circuits, each less powerful than what’s in even an average smartphone these days (but it was more powerful, because there so many). The bench, a favorite nap spot for tired programmers/make-out spot at geeky holiday parties, housed a freon cooling system so that those thousands of chips didn’t melt.

I remember seeing one of the successors to the Cray-1 when I visited my dad’s lab as a kid in the 80’s. “What is this wrap-around bench computer that someone stole from the deck of the Enterprise?” I asked (that sounds like something I would ask anyway). It looked like a time portal with a sofa attached. I guess for $8 million bucks, adding a seat was the least they could do.

Read more about the history of the Cray-1 and more early supercomputers here.

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