
Seymour Cray Obituary by John Markoff (1996) - BobbyVsTheDevil
http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~bezenek/cray.html
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ScottBurson
"He knew every transistor and every wire in his computers." \-- Danny Hillis

I recall hearing a story years ago about one of his machines, perhaps a 7600.
It seems a technician had been called to service the machine, and in the
process, noticed a wire that was quite a bit longer than the distance between
the two points it connected. The technician replaced the wire with one cut to
length... and the machine stopped working.

Cray was using the speed-of-light delay to time some signal.

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sverige
Mr. Cray was admirable for his tenacity and single-mindedness. I especially
liked his disdain for committees and corporate governance. He knew what he
wanted to do, and it didn't involve sitting in silly meetings about
nonessential stuff. We owe a lot to his designs. And they were his designs,
not some committee's.

I lived in Colorado Springs when Mr. Cray died so tragically. Every time I go
past exit 150 (Academy Blvd.) on I-25, I think to myself, this is the Seymour
Cray Memorial Interchange. It has been redesigned from the old-fashioned
cloverleaf into a newer design where off- and on-ramp traffic don't have to
merge in an eighth of a mile.

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davidf18
This is the Watson "janitor" letter:
[http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/supercomputers/10/...](http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/supercomputers/10/33/62)

Here is a talk of his:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtOA1vuoDgQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtOA1vuoDgQ)

Bill Norris mentioned was the CEO of CDC.

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chmaynard
I wonder if the University of Wisconsin knows that their website is being used
to post an obituary that is probably protected by copyright? (Markoff writes
for The New York Times.) Just asking.

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greenyoda
Since it's being used for non-profit, educational purposes, this might fall
under "fair use".

