| Cray, Seymour R.
b. Sept. 28, 1925, Chippewa
Falls, Wis., U.S.
d. Oct. 5, 1996, Colorado Springs, Colo. |
American electronics engineer who was the preeminent
designer of the large, high-speed computers known as
supercomputers.
Cray graduated from the University of Minnesota in
1950 with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering.
He began his career as a computer scientist
working on UNIVAC I, a landmark first-generation
electronic digital computer that became the first
commercially available computer. In 1957 Cray
helped found Control Data Corp., which became a major computer
manufacturer. There Cray designed the CDC 6600 and the
CDC 7600, large-scale computers notable for their high
processing speeds.
In 1972 Cray left Control Data to found his own firm,
Cray Research Inc., with the intention of building the
fastest computers in the world. This was largely
realized through his innovative design of multiprocessor
computers, which allowed simultaneous (parallel)
processing. His company's first supercomputer, the
Cray-1, which came out in 1976, could perform
240,000,000 calculations per second. It was used for
large-scale scientific applications, such as simulating
complex physical phenomena, and was sold to government
and university laboratories. Further supercomputers
followed, each with increased computing speed: the Cray
1-M and the Cray X-MP. Cray resigned as chairman of his
growing firm in 1981 and became an independent
contractor to the company, designing ever-faster
machines at his laboratory in Chippewa Falls. In 1985
the Cray-2 was introduced to the market; this machine,
which was cooled by Fluorinert, could perform
1,200,000,000 calculations per second. The Cray Y-MP,
introduced in 1988, was capable of 2,670,000,000
calculations per second. In 1989 Cray founded the Cray Computer
Corporation. However, as microprocessor technology
advanced and the demand for supercomputers fell in the
post-Cold War era, Cray Computers filed for bankruptcy
in 1995.
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