Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site stolaf.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!genrad!mit-eddie!mit-vax!eagle!mhuxt!mhuxj!aluxz!mhuxi!mhuxa!houxm!ihnp4!stolaf!sys From: sys@stolaf.UUCP Newsgroups: net.arch Subject: Re: Cray vs ICs (no more cray 2--part 2) Message-ID: <1073@stolaf.UUCP> Date: Tue, 5-Jul-83 10:11:01 EDT Article-I.D.: stolaf.1073 Posted: Tue Jul 5 10:11:01 1983 Date-Received: Thu, 7-Jul-83 12:22:51 EDT References: <487@uw-june.UUCP>, <1067@stolaf.UUCP> Organization: St. Olaf College, Northfield MN Lines: 44 It looks like I need to clarify my last posting regarding the Cray-2. It is true that the original Cray-2 was canned. Since it never went into production, its replacement will also be called the Cray-2 (how clever). Perhaps a quote from the article (6/12/83 Minneapolis Tribune) will help... "In the fall of 1982 it was obvious that the Steve Chen (a Cray development vice president) group had done an excellent job on the Cray-1 enhancements. They were close enough so that the original Cray-2 goals were not aggressive enough to warrant continuing," Cray said. So Cray began a major overhaul of his Cray-2 design. Because the enhanced Cray-1 was offering two to five times the speed of the original Cray-1, his first Cray-2 wouldn't be a significant improvement if it offered only six to 12 times the Cray-1's original speed, he reasoned. But Cray is nothing if not a poet in the world of complex equations and high-technology design tradeoffs. He wove a new kind of meter and rhyme that the world has not seen before: Eight computer processors working together at 48 times the speed of the original Cray-1. Naturally, it hasn't been cheap. Cray Research has had to build an integrated circuit factory in Chippewa Falls [Wisconsin] to make high-speed computer chips out of a new material called gallium arsenide. In upgrading the Cray-2 memory, it scrapped $3.6 million in old memory components--writing off more than a quarter of the 1982 Cray-2 research-and-development budget. That high-speed model using gallium arsenide chips won't be available until 1986, although a slower version using conventional silicon chips will be sold next year. Both are likely to sell for more than $10 million each. The success of this improved Cray-2 design pleases Cray immensely. "I was not an outstanding contributor (to Cray Research) last year," he said. "But I hope to be this year." . . . Sorry about the confusion, Victor Lee -- St. Olaf College, Northfield MN -- ihnp4!stolaf!vtl