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/COMP/ Судьба Cray
Aug. 27th, 2007 07:17 pmИнтересный тред в совершенно неожиданном для этого месте (serusers)... я такие подробности не знал.
From: SIP
Take Cray Supercomputers as a prime example. Seymour Cray built this
fantastic supercomputer architecture, but didn't build any peripherals
for it or even an operating system, assuming that, if people had the raw
speed and power available, they'd be eager to use it even if they had to
build their own hardware/software. Eventually, after three tries at
three different companies, all with this same goal (he kept being forced
out of his own companies for his short-sighted and poor business ideas),
Seymour Cray's own company went bankrupt because people refused to buy
computers that were difficult to deploy, even if they were extremely fast.
From: Michael Grigoni
Yes, Seymour liked to code in machine language right from the console
and the O/Ses for his machines developed 'organically' from the bottom up
in general, but wouldn't you consider SCOPE, KRONOS, NOS etc. operating
systems? And as for hardware, the CDC peripherals and Hyperchannel
offerings seemed to be the best in the industry on Cray CPUs...
From: SIP
Right, but Cray himself was TOTALLY against their creation. This was
one of the reasons he left CDC to form Cray Research (which, mind you,
CDC was very much in support of, as they had much faith in Cray's
abilities). He argued vehemently that the peripherals were unnecessary
products, and eventually, this disagreement caused him to leave and form
Cray Research, where he could be free from 'management failures' as he
liked to call them. The CDC, however, was extremely supportive of Cray
Research, and put money and development time into it, much to Cray's
chagrin.
Then, again, when Cray Research was faced with the decision of whether
to build computers that people would buy or computers for the sake of
building computers, they understood that they needed to stay in
business, and decided on the path that would lead them to solvency.
This caused Cray to leave his own company and form Cray Computers. He
vowed that CCC would make fast and powerful computers and that nothing
else would be a priority. He assumed that speed and power were the
ultimate goal and that everything would fall into place if he achieved
that goal. Of course, his shortsightedness caused bankruptcy.
Incidentally, having had to use NOS on a regular basis back in the day,
I would scarcely call it an operating system. Anything that lets you
manually change the bits in memory of a running program isn't an OS,
it's just a GUI for the hardware. ;)
From: Michael Grigoni
He was certainly well-known for a conservative engineering approach,
avoiding bleeding-edge technology (e.g. Integrated Circuits, later LSI)
and pushing mature technologies to incredible performance, but I had not
heard of a philosophical objection to making peripherals and operating
systems even though it was evident he felt it was the domain of others.
From: SIP
He was very much a visionary, and a dedicated engineer... but
unfortunately, there's more to any project than simply the engineering
aspect, and I think Cray had issues with that. He was just a terrible
businessman, and very headstrong. In his idea, all you needed was a good
product, and people would buy it. Would that that were truly the case,
but time and time again, we're shown that often the BEST technology is
not the one people end up with because of poor marketing or business
decisions.
Философские выводы делать особо не хочу - и так понятны.
From: SIP
Take Cray Supercomputers as a prime example. Seymour Cray built this
fantastic supercomputer architecture, but didn't build any peripherals
for it or even an operating system, assuming that, if people had the raw
speed and power available, they'd be eager to use it even if they had to
build their own hardware/software. Eventually, after three tries at
three different companies, all with this same goal (he kept being forced
out of his own companies for his short-sighted and poor business ideas),
Seymour Cray's own company went bankrupt because people refused to buy
computers that were difficult to deploy, even if they were extremely fast.
From: Michael Grigoni
Yes, Seymour liked to code in machine language right from the console
and the O/Ses for his machines developed 'organically' from the bottom up
in general, but wouldn't you consider SCOPE, KRONOS, NOS etc. operating
systems? And as for hardware, the CDC peripherals and Hyperchannel
offerings seemed to be the best in the industry on Cray CPUs...
From: SIP
Right, but Cray himself was TOTALLY against their creation. This was
one of the reasons he left CDC to form Cray Research (which, mind you,
CDC was very much in support of, as they had much faith in Cray's
abilities). He argued vehemently that the peripherals were unnecessary
products, and eventually, this disagreement caused him to leave and form
Cray Research, where he could be free from 'management failures' as he
liked to call them. The CDC, however, was extremely supportive of Cray
Research, and put money and development time into it, much to Cray's
chagrin.
Then, again, when Cray Research was faced with the decision of whether
to build computers that people would buy or computers for the sake of
building computers, they understood that they needed to stay in
business, and decided on the path that would lead them to solvency.
This caused Cray to leave his own company and form Cray Computers. He
vowed that CCC would make fast and powerful computers and that nothing
else would be a priority. He assumed that speed and power were the
ultimate goal and that everything would fall into place if he achieved
that goal. Of course, his shortsightedness caused bankruptcy.
Incidentally, having had to use NOS on a regular basis back in the day,
I would scarcely call it an operating system. Anything that lets you
manually change the bits in memory of a running program isn't an OS,
it's just a GUI for the hardware. ;)
From: Michael Grigoni
He was certainly well-known for a conservative engineering approach,
avoiding bleeding-edge technology (e.g. Integrated Circuits, later LSI)
and pushing mature technologies to incredible performance, but I had not
heard of a philosophical objection to making peripherals and operating
systems even though it was evident he felt it was the domain of others.
From: SIP
He was very much a visionary, and a dedicated engineer... but
unfortunately, there's more to any project than simply the engineering
aspect, and I think Cray had issues with that. He was just a terrible
businessman, and very headstrong. In his idea, all you needed was a good
product, and people would buy it. Would that that were truly the case,
but time and time again, we're shown that often the BEST technology is
not the one people end up with because of poor marketing or business
decisions.
Философские выводы делать особо не хочу - и так понятны.
