Core Memory Collection

My Photographs

A selection of pictures from Computer History Museum

Cray-1A (Serial number 6) 1976 Cray Research, Inc., United States In 1972, Seymour Cray left Control Data Corporation to create Cray Research, Inc. Four years later, Cray released the Cray-1A vector processor. Not only would it be the fastest machine in the world until 1977, its unique design (which included a circular bench that housed its power supplies) made it a supercomputing icon for decades. Selling for about $6 million, the machine featured hand-wired circuitry and a Freon cooling system. The Cray-1A required a mainframe computer and an array of high-speed hard disk drives to optimize its use. Memory Type: Semi Speed: 160 MFLOPS Memory Size: 4M Cost: $5–10,000,000 Memory Width: (64-bit)

Mark Richards