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==Beginnings: 1950s and 1960s==
{{see also|Vector processor#History|Vector Processor history}}
The term "Super Computing" was first used in the ''[[New York World]]'' in 1929<ref>{{cite book |last1=Eames |first1=Charles |last2=Eames |first2=Ray |title=A Computer Perspective |year=1973 |publisher=Harvard University Press |___location= Cambridge, Mass |pages = 95 }}. Page 95 identifies the article as {{cite news |title= Super Computing Machines Shown |publisher=New York World |date= March 1, 1920 }}. However, the article shown on page 95 references the Statistical Bureau in Hamilton Hall, and an article at the Columbia Computing History web site states that such did not exist until 1929. See [http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/packard.html The Columbia Difference Tabulator - 1931]</ref> to refer to large custom-built [[Tabulating machine|tabulator]]s that [[IBM]] had made for [[Columbia University]].<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/statlab-clipping.jpg|title= ''Super Computing Machines Shown'' (in ''New York World'') | year = 1920| access-date = 26 February 2024}}</ref>
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==The Cray era: mid-1970s and 1980s==
[[File:Cray2.jpeg|thumb|A [[Fluorinert]]-cooled [[Cray-2]] supercomputer]]
Four years after leaving CDC, Cray delivered the 80 MHz [[Cray-1]] in 1976, and it became the most successful supercomputer in history.<ref name=Hill41>{{cite book | title = Readings in computer architecture | first1 = Mark Donald | last1 = Hill |author-link2=Norman Jouppi | first2 = Norman Paul | last2 = Jouppi | first3 = Gurindar | last3 = Sohi | year = 1999 | isbn = 978-1-55860-539-8 | pages = 41–48| publisher = Gulf Professional }}</ref><ref name=Edwin65 /> The Cray-1, which used integrated circuits with two gates per chip, was a [[vector processor]]. It introduced a number of innovations, such as [[chaining (vector processing)|chaining]], in which scalar and vector registers generate interim results that can be used immediately, without additional memory references which would otherwise reduce computational speed.<ref name="The Supermen 1997"/><ref name=Tokhi >{{cite book | title = Parallel computing for real-time signal processing and control | url = https://archive.org/details/parallelcomputin00phdm | url-access = limited | first1 = M. O. | last1 = Tokhi | first2 = Mohammad Alamgir | last2 = Hossain | year = 2003 | isbn = 978-1-85233-599-1 | pages = [https://archive.org/details/parallelcomputin00phdm/page/n209 201]-202| publisher = Springer }}</ref> The [[Cray X-MP]] (designed by [[Steve Chen (computer engineer)|Steve Chen]]) was released in 1982 as a 105 MHz shared-memory [[Parallel computing|parallel]] [[vector processor]] with better chaining support and multiple memory pipelines. All three floating
The [[Cray-2]], released in 1985, was a four-processor [[Computer cooling|liquid cooled]] computer totally immersed in a tank of [[Fluorinert]], which bubbled as it operated.<ref name="The Supermen 1997" /> It reached 1.9 gigaflops and was the world's fastest supercomputer, and the first to break the gigaflop barrier.<ref>Due to Soviet propaganda, it can be read sometimes that the Soviet supercomputer M13 was the first to reach the gigaflops barrier. Actually, the M13 construction began in 1984, but it was not operational before 1986. [https://www.computer-museum.ru/english/galglory_en/Rogachev.php Rogachev Yury Vasilievich, Russian Virtual Computer Museum]</ref> The Cray-2 was a totally new design. It did not use chaining and had a high memory latency, but used much pipelining and was ideal for problems that required large amounts of memory.<ref name=Tokhi /> The software costs in developing a supercomputer should not be underestimated, as evidenced by the fact that in the 1980s the cost for software development at Cray came to equal what was spent on hardware.<ref name=MacKenzie >{{cite book | title = Knowing machines: essays on technical change | first = Donald | last = MacKenzie | year = 1998 | isbn = 0-262-63188-1 | pages = 149–151| publisher = MIT Press| url=https://archive.org/details/knowingmachinese0000mack/} }}</ref> That trend was partly responsible for a move away from the in-house, [[Cray Operating System]] to [[UNICOS]] based on [[Unix]].<ref name=MacKenzie />
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==External links==
*[https://www.computerhistory.org/visiblestorage/1960s-1980s/supercomputers/ Supercomputers (1960s-1980s)] at the [[Computer History Museum]]
*[https://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/academic/class/15740-f03/public/doc/discussions/uniprocessors/vector/vector-past-present-future-supercomputing98.pdf R. Espasa, M. Valero, and J. E. Smith, “Vector architectures: past, present and future,” in Proceedings of the 12th international conference on Supercomputing, 1998]
[[Category:Supercomputers]]
[[Category:History of computing hardware|Supercomputing]]
[[Category:History of Silicon Valley|Supercomputing]]
==References==
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