Perhaps I should share why serial number 1 was sent back to Cray since this is a history group.
When Serial 1 showed up in Los Alamos in 1976 it wouldn’t run for more than a few minutes yet it would run for hours in Minnesota.
Turns out there was no memory protection and cosmic events at Los Alamos altitude were different enough from Minnesota.
The memory was reworked and protection was added. Serial number 1 was a bit of a testbed and had many mods/corrections made
before subsequent machines were produced in 1977 and beyond. That was the intent of the trial.
Gary
From: Grider, Gary Alan
Sent: Friday, November 9, 2018 3:01 PM
To: 'Kevin Walsh' <kwalsh@ucsd.edu>; members@lists.sigcis.org
Cc: Tom Hutton <hutton@sdsc.edu>; Ian MacConnell (ianmacconnellsc@gmail.com) <ianmacconnellsc@gmail.com>
Subject: RE: [SIGCIS-Members] Cray 1 serial number 0 being put together on Facebook Live at SC 2018
I think there is a correction to be made here:
From
https://www2.cisl.ucar.edu/supercomputer/c1
“By 1975, NCAR's 7600 was straining under a severe overload. SCD was oversubscribed; turnaround time had become intolerable. A request for proposal (RFP) was issued, resulting in an order for a CRAY-1A. While serial number 1
of the CRAY-1 computer system had been shipped to the Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1976 for a six-month trial period, NCAR was Cray Research's first official customer.
On July 11, 1977, the CRAY-1A, serial number 3, was delivered to NCAR. The system cost was $8.86 million ($7.9 million plus $1 million for the disks).”
For a long time, Serial number 1 sat in the Bradbury Museum in Los Alamos until Cray asked if they could have it for their
Chippewa museum.
They shipped Los Alamos Serial number 2 for the Bradbury Museum. I believe it is sitting in a back room at Bradbury now.
Thanks
Gary Grider
LANL
From: Members <members-bounces@lists.sigcis.org>
On Behalf Of Kevin Walsh
Sent: Friday, November 9, 2018 2:48 PM
To: members@lists.sigcis.org
Cc: Tom Hutton <hutton@sdsc.edu>; Ian MacConnell (ianmacconnellsc@gmail.com) <ianmacconnellsc@gmail.com>
Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Cray 1 serial number 0 being put together on Facebook Live at SC 2018
All,
Cray 1 fabrication on Facebook LIVE happening now -
The Cray 1 that was the first Cray at NCAR and then Los Alamos is currently being put together for display at the ACM/IEEE Supercomputer Conference in Dallas, Texas.
Folks in the Dallas area can stop by to see the Cray and supercomputing artifacts assembled for the 30th Anniversary of the SC conference.
We will record the fabrication and post a separate time lapse video after completion.
Regards,