
Homebrew Cray-1A - nilicule
http://www.chrisfenton.com/homebrew-cray-1a/
======
fentonc
Chris Fenton here - someone did actually send me an 80MB 'disk pack' with
software, and I was able to modify a super old disk drive to actually read it:

[http://www.chrisfenton.com/cray-1-digital-
archeology/](http://www.chrisfenton.com/cray-1-digital-archeology/)

And thanks to some awesome help from others, I was able to actually recover a
copy of COS (Cray OS):

[http://www.chrisfenton.com/cos-recovery/](http://www.chrisfenton.com/cos-
recovery/)

Andras Tantos and I have been collaborating on this together for a while now,
and he actually has a downloadable Cray X-MP datacenter simulator he wrote,
where you can run the COS image I found:

[http://www.modularcircuits.com/blog/articles/the-cray-
files/](http://www.modularcircuits.com/blog/articles/the-cray-files/)

~~~
timdiggerm
Maybe you should link these pages together better

~~~
fentonc
Website design is not a strength of mine =) Most of my random projects just
get their own page on my site whenever I get around to doing a write-up.

~~~
theflubba
This isn't about web design. You should just add links to these articles on
the article you submitted. Good for google ranking, increases the chances of
someone reading them, makes user happy :)

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Animats
Now if only someone can get this guy some Cray-I software. Even the Computer
Museum, which has an actual Cray-I they use as a piece of furniture,
apparently doesn't have any.

The Cray-I is a rather simple machine at the logic level. There are 64 of some
registers, but they're all the same. The instruction set is small.

~~~
totalforge
To be fair, booting the Cray would require a good sized power substation. The
power bill would be... impressive.

~~~
kjs3
The 1s used between 100kW and 150kW. So a small substation. The XMP used
200-300kW. The 2 used 150-200kW.

There was a YMP model (the EL) that could be power off normal mains (220v).

Energy efficient was different back then.

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krylon
This is so awesome.

But what I'd _really_ like is that to-scale case and put a small PC in it.
Even if one does not care at all about its historic significance, the Cray-1
was one of the most visually appealing computers I have ever seen. Having a
miniature version of it sitting on my desk would be extremely cool.

~~~
VLM
Well, just saying:

[http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:26671](http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:26671)

On a slightly larger scale, I will, eventually, in my infinite space time,
have a full size wooden cray I in my rec room as a sitting couch. I have the
carpentry skill and tools and structural experience to pull this off. For many
years I have periodically worked on dimensioned drawings. My strategy revolves
around making eleven identical 22.5 degree segments with a framework and
panels mounted in slots and two "about half" segments and then bolting the
column detail from one to the internal framework of the other. This makes it
very easy to build and very easy to move (well, sure, 13 total segments and
maybe 10 bolts each means a lot of wrench time when you move it, but no
segment is individually too big for a person to move.)

To warn other people, this is a typical "large machine in a giant data center
looks small, but it looks huge in a normal size house" kind of problem. Its
about six and a half feet tall and about eight and a half feet across so its a
rather substantial investment in space. Then again you can use the enclosed
volume for storage. Essentially you have eleven small full height coat closets
and under seat storage also.

I have a basement rec room / craft room / lab that runs the length of my house
so it will be more or less in proportion other than height.

~~~
krylon
Nice! Thanks for the link!

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jhallenworld
Please upload any working cray image to bitsavers.org.

I wrote an emulator for a Motorola Exorciser (6800 development system:
[http://exorsim.sourceforge.net/](http://exorsim.sourceforge.net/) ), and am
totally in debt to whoever uploaded the MDOS disk images.

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pmiller2
I'm wondering about the relative performance between this and the real
Cray-1A. Surely, this thing beats it on a FLOPS/Watt basis, at least. :)

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philf
previously:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4561787](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4561787)

~~~
DupDetector
And prior to that:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1645291](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1645291)

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martin1b
Anxious to see how this turns out. Very interesting!

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eaxitect
I really like the idea and implementation.

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JetSpiegel
But can it run Crysis?

Or even Doom?

