12 Apr
2012
12 Apr
'12
6:06 p.m.
On 2012 Apr 12, at 11:53 AM, Eric Smith wrote:
Christian Liendo wrote:
The LARC should also have been mentioned.
I suppose mentioning ILLIAC IV might be considered contentious.
I know someone will be interested in this
article
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/125271-the-history-of-
supercomputers
If the CDC 6600 was "actually fairly small ? about the size of four
filing cabinets", then the author has apparently seen *MUCH* larger
filing cabinets than I ever have. I think the overall volume is
closer to that of about 15 normal-sized four-drawer filing cabinets.
Personally, I'm skeptical about there being any reasonable
definition of "supercomputer" by which the IBM 7030 ("Stretch",
1961) and NORC (1954) didn't qualify. In fact, although the Wikipedia article on
supercomputers doesn't
mention NORC, the article on NORC quotes Frank da Cruz of Columbia
University as stating that NORC was the first supercomputer. Giving
credit where credit is due, Seymour Cray probably did more to
advance the state of the art of supercomputers than any other
individual, but claims of the 6600 being the first supercomputer
strike me as being revisionist history.