The passing of Seymour Cray on October 5, 1996 due to an unfortunate auto accident has taken one of the geniuses from the computer industry. His brilliance will be missed.
Cray's Jeep Cherokee rolled three times after the driver of
another vehicle tried to pass him and struck another car, which
slammed into Cray's vehicle. The other motorists weren't injured.
Daniel Rarick, 33, of Colorado Springs was cited for careless
driving that caused serious bodily injury, said Colorado State
Patrol Sgt. Rob Wilson.
Cray, who devoted his life to trying to develop the world's
fastest supercomputers, is a legendary figure in the industry.
"He is the Thomas Edison of the supercomputing
industry," said Larry L. Smarr, director of the National
Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of
Illinois.
"We wouldn't have the kinds of airplanes and cars that we
have now if it hadn't been for him," said John Rollwagen,
chairman of Computer Network Technology Corp. of Plymouth, Minn.
Supercomputers, which calculate billions of scientific problems
per second, are used for weather forecasting, automobile crash
simulation, oil exploration and drug research.
In 1957, Cray co-founded Control Data Corp., where he built the
first computer to use radio transistors instead of vacuum tubes.
The transistors made the machines more reliable and allowed for
the miniaturization of components, which enhanced the performance
of desktop computers.
In the 1960s, he designed the world's first supercomputer at
Control Data, then left in 1972 and co-founded Cray Research Inc.
There, he built the Cray-1 and Cray-2 supercomputers, which
helped the defense industry create sophisticated weapons systems
and the oil industry construct geographic models that predicted
mineral deposits.
At his third company, Cray Computer Corp., he failed to raise $20
million for operating costs and filed for bankruptcy in March
1995. It closed soon afterward. In August, Cray started a new
company called SRC Computers Inc.
SEYMOUR CRAY MSNBC
site
?Copyright 1996 The Associated Press
Please leave a note that you have visited this memorial page.
Return to Lorimer Network Research
Adding notes to this page have been closed, but you are welcome to view what has been said over the years about this great man.
[guestlog.htm]