Country of Origin: United States of America Overall: 6ft x 7ft
(182.88 x 213.36cm) Frame: Aluminum, with circuit boards
attached. Wires in interior. This is a CRAY-1, an early example
of a class of computers called "supercomputers." It was built by
Cray Research, Inc. of Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, and installed
at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in
Boulder, Colorado. Unlike most computers, it was hand-wired, and
its circuits were arranged in a three-quarters circle. Both
helped increase the speeds at which signals travel from one part
of the computer to another. Hefty power supplies are located
below each of the circuit bays, and the padding on them suggests
a piece of lounge furniture. At NCAR, the machine was used
between 1977 and 1983, where it performed complex calculations
involving the numerical modeling of weather phenomena. As the
speeds of ordinary workstations increased over the years, it
became obsolete and was donated to the Smithsonian. Gift of Cray
Research, Inc.