Who invented Supercomputer?

Seymour Cray, 1974

All computers have become much faster and more powerful. A computer’s speed can be measured in FLOPS (floating point operations per second), roughly the number of calculations done each second. The earliest computers did a few thousand, the first PCs a few million. Modern desktops manage a few billion, which sounds quick, yet leading edge’ supercomputers’ are a thousand times faster again, and more. In 2006 a machine at a leading US defense laboratory completed an astounding 200 million calculations each second. Upgrades should take it to 500.

History of Supercomputer:

The pioneer was Seymour Cray, whose first machine CRAY-1, reached the market in 1974. Building faster computers raised many issues. Cray figured that a number of smaller computers running side by side would go faster than a single larger machine. To minimize the time taken to shift data from processor to processor, the connections were as short as possible. His most famous designs were cylindrical. All that processing in a small space generated a lot of heat. Lastly the data had to be moved in and out of the computer fast enough not to slow the calculations. As Cray said; ‘Anyone can build a fast processor. What we need is a fast system’.

For several decades Cray-designed supercomputers (a term he did not use) whipped the opposition for speed. Nothing else came close. Cray hit financial turbulence himself later, perhaps not surprising in so risky a business, where one machine could cost $5 million. He was successful, selling 100 CRAY-1s and setting the early pace. Others have now taken over, using ‘massively parallel’ computing. Tens of thousands of processors like the CPU in your desktop run together to generate blinding speed

Benefits:

The demand for speed comes from military agencies, universities and major research laboratories with big, tough calculations to do. Tasks include forecasting the weather (always a rugged one), figuring the shapes of chemical molecules used as medical drugs, simulating how new nuclear weapons or aircraft will perform (much cheaper than a wind tunnel) and cracking codes. By the way, only the top machines can beat the best human chess players.