12 Apr
2012
12 Apr
'12
1:57 p.m.
On 12 Apr 2012 at 11:53, Eric Smith wrote:
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.
I don't recall CDC ever calling the 6600 a "supercomputer"; they may
have done so with the 7600--they certainly did so with the STAR (ca.
1969).
Part of revisionism it seems to me, is the attempt to couch older
technology in modern "in" terms. For example, consider the WikiP
article on the TI ASC (a "supercomputer" if there ever was one).
Talking about the functional units of the 6600 as "cores" seems to me
to be stretching things. Back then, a "core" meant something very
different.
--Chuck