Back

The early 90's was a special era at NCSA. They were fostering a "garden of supercomputing" philosophy, and as a result they had a large selection of very high end esoteric computers (not all of which are pictured here). The "big iron" machines could easily cost between $10M and $20M each. In 1993, NCSA had several machines on the first official Top 500 Supercomputer Sites list.

For more historic info see:
Bullet Cray History
Bullet Thinking Machines History
Bullet Cray Supercomputer FAQ


Me next to the partially disassembled Cray-2S/4-128 (static memory, 4 vector processors - 4.1 nsec clock, 128 Mwords main memory, 1952 Mflops). The Cray-2's vector processors were geared toward 64-bit floating-point operations. Several circuit modules have been removed by the Cray engineers. These were all submerged in a liquid called Fluorinert when in operation to dissipate heat.


A suboptimal picture of the ominous entrance to the 3rd floor machine room...


Another Cray-2 picture. The column of circuit boards in the left part of the picture is the exposed IOS of the Cray Y-MP/464 (4 vector processors, 64 Mwords main memory, 128 Mwords solid-state storage device, 1333 Mflops).

My friend Tom and I next to NCSA's CM-5/512. He used to be a student operator at NCSA also. Now he's running his own business on his way to being a millionaire. Remember who helped you in the early days Tom :)

We're still working on his posture. He says "the gravitational constant is too high here!" I personally think it has something to do with the red lights.

"We're building a machine that will be proud of us." – Thinking Machines' motto


A good picture of the Cray-2 with a side view of the Cray Y-MP behind.




The Cray-2 with its "water fall" behind.


The HP-Convex S-class Exemplar with me striking a rather manly pose.









The SGI Power Challenge Array


The SGI-Cray Origin 2000 Array


Me with the HP-Convex X-class Exemplar attempting some sort of...pose. Come to think of it, this thing really looks like a Borg ship when its covers are removed....




And more of these appeared after the above picture was taken...just like the Borg!

It would be perfect if Convex had a motto like..."Resistance is futile."



In August of 2007, I returned to NCSA for a visit.
Below are some pictures of the hardware they were using.

   

   

   

Back