Legends of Technology | Cray, Seymour

Cray, Seymour (1925–1996) American Computer Engineer, Inventor

Seymour Cray was a computer designer who pioneered the development of high-performance computers that came to be called supercomputers. Cray was born in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. After serving in World War II as an army electrical technician, Cray went to the University of Minnesota and earned a B.S. in electrical engineering and then an m.S. in applied mathematics. (This combination is a common background for many of the designers who would have to combine mathematics and engineering principles to create the first computers.) 

In 1951, he joined Engineering Research Associates (ERA), one of a handful of companies that sought to commercialize the digital computing technology that had been developed during and just after the war. Cray soon became known for his ability to grasp every aspect of computing from logic circuits to the infant discipline of software development. When ERA and its competitor, the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Company were bought by Remington Rand, Cray became the chief designer for the Univac, the first commercially successful computer. 

In 1957, however, Cray and two colleagues struck out on their own to form Control Data Corporation (CDC). Their CDC 1604 was one of the first computers to move from vacuum tubes to transistors. The CDC 6600 was considered by many to be technically superior to the IBM 360. However, by then IBM had become preeminent in the business computing market, while the CDC machines found favor with scientists. By the late 1960s, Cray had persuaded CDC to provide him with production facilities within walking distance of his home in Chippewa Falls. There he designed the CDC 7600. This computer was hailed as the world’s first supercomputer (see supeRcomputeR). 

However, CDC disagreed with Cray about the commercial feasibility of even more powerful computers. In 1972, Cray formed his own company, Cray Research, Inc. By then Cray’s reputation as a computer architect was so great that investors flocked to buy stock in his company. His series of Cray supercomputers looked like sleek monoliths from a science fiction movie. The machines were the first supercomputers to use parallel processing, where tasks can be assigned to different processors to speed up throughput. While costing millions of dollars apiece, the Cray supercomputers made it possible to perform simulations in atomic physics, aerodynamics, and other fields that were far beyond the capabilities of earlier computers. However, the Cray Computer Corporation ran into financial problems and was bought by Silicon graphics (SgI) in 1996. Cray received many honors including the IEEE Computer Society Pioneer Award (1980) and the ACM/IEEE Eckert-Mauchly Award (1989). Cray died on October 5, 1996, in Colorado Springs, Colorado.