Cray-1 resurfaces in pieces on eBay
The stories it could tell. But then it would have to kill you
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What are the odds that two different sellers on both sides of the Pond would find themselves peddling some of the processing modules of the original Cray-1 vector supercomputer?
The probability would be 1.
A chap in the United Kingdom put up one of the original Cray-1 gate array modules on the UK eBay site for £550 on May 17, and no one bid on it. This seller claims that the Cray 1 module came from the very first Cray-1 super, which was installed at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1976 after a bidding war with Lawrence Livermore National Lab. This original Cray-1 was shipped off to the European Weather Centre in the UK, and then absorbed into the bowels of a UK government site for heaven only knows what purpose.
The Cray-1 vector supercomputer: Still the coolest HPC of all time, unless you like Der Blinken Lights.
Over at FutureBots in the States, Dan Mathais — who sells electronic components and has a huge collection of vintage PCs, minis, and supercomputers as well as toy robots — also has a Cray-1 module for sale here on eBay for $1,000.
That's a pretty expensive paperweight. But, then again, exercise equipment is an expensive clothes line, as well. ®
COMMENTS
according to the description of the US one
"no chips or scratches"
I'd at least expect some chips...
No-one bid??
If I'd have known it was there, I'd have bid! Awesome thing to have in your study/server shed, and you have to admit, it'd be a hell of a conversation starter.
Chips...
Yes, the Cray-1 did use ICs, but mainly very simple SSI ones. The biggest device used in terms of number of gates was a 1kbit SRAM. Seymour resisted VLSI devices for quite a while - even the Cray-3 in 1993 had pretty low-scale integration, although it did use bleeding-edge GaAs ICs.
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