This is it, the ultimate use! Forget about these science equations/simulations/solving complex protein structures, we just need to know the hashrate for mining crypto!
These systems actually have purpose before "we didt it!". Scientific research (medical, geological, meteorological, nuclear, etc.), governmental agencies (NSA!), etc. all use them or request time from them.
Very small. You're in a video game in the pocket of some pre-teen alien somewhere. Life is meaningless.
Neat. I work for Cray (now part of HPE) on the programming environment tools for our systems. Excited about the new machine.
Where are you located? When I retired in July 2017, I was in the offices at Mall of America. I started with Cray in Houston in 1985.
Oh -- we must have worked in the same office. I'm in Saint Paul. Work from home now, but MOA offices are my "official" location.
I used to want to work for Cray as a kid. But then I wanted to work everywhere based upon what I had just read about back then. "Boy, that Lockheed SR-71 is the baddest plane ever made... I want to work there..." I still remember reading about Cray in the 80s and 90s. Back then I think they got acquired by SGI and the DEC Alphas were getting recognition (DEC was still around!), but I forgot what happened to Cray after that. I would just see them here and there on the Top500 and think "oh dang, they're still around!"
Here's a bit of history from Wikipedia: The company's predecessor, Cray Research, Inc. (CRI), was founded in 1972 by computer designer Seymour Cray.[10] Seymour Cray later formed Cray Computer Corporation (CCC) in 1989, which went bankrupt in 1995. Cray Research was acquired by Silicon Graphics (SGI) in 1996. Cray Inc. was formed in 2000 when Tera Computer Company purchased the Cray Research Inc. business from SGI and adopted the name of its acquisition.[11] The company was acquired by Hewlett Packard Enterprise in 2019 for $1.3 billion.[12 Tera acquired Cray Research from SGI and then renamed itself Cray Inc. At this point, Cray is a brand of HPC systems that HPE sells. Still some Cray folks from the Cray Research times around, though.
Lots of Cray Research folks still exist, especially in my old group. According to Belluzo (SGI CEO when they sold Cray to Tera), their biggest regret was not holding onto the Cray name.
Cool. I didn't know they had been bought and sold and the name passed on. Nice to see the Cray name still up at the top and somewhat dominating the top 10 on the Top500 charts. Nostalgia.
This thread is making me think about computer companies of the past Wang DEC (Digital) SGI CDC Tandem Data General Amdahl Sun Maybe GE and Honeywell had computer divisions as well. Xerox did quite a bit on research, but don't remember them having much commercial success. I am trying to remember the name of the competitor to Tandem, but can't come up with it. I know that Google knows the answer, but trying to do it without that type of help. Maybe Wang, Data General and DEC were all in New England.
Tandem aimed for a special niche in mission critical stuff with NonStop. I don't remember any of those that you named as the main competitor to Tandem
