Homebrew Cray-1A

#1

Post by nilicule » Mon, Oct 13, 2014, 4:45 AM UTC

Homebrew Cray-1A
chrisfenton.com

Re: Homebrew Cray-1A

#2

Post by eaxitect » Mon, Oct 13, 2014, 6:57 AM UTC

I really like the idea and implementation.

Re: Homebrew Cray-1A

#3

Post by Animats » Mon, Oct 13, 2014, 7:34 AM UTC

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.

Re: Homebrew Cray-1A

#4

Post by philf » Mon, Oct 13, 2014, 8:35 AM UTC

previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4561787

Re: Homebrew Cray-1A

#5

Post by JetSpiegel » Mon, Oct 13, 2014, 9:29 AM UTC

But can it run Crysis?

Or even Doom?

Re: Homebrew Cray-1A

#6

Post by krylon » Mon, Oct 13, 2014, 9:32 AM UTC

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.

Re: Homebrew Cray-1A

#7

Post by DupDetector » Mon, Oct 13, 2014, 10:52 AM UTC

philf wrote: post #4

previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4561787

And prior to that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1645291

Re: Homebrew Cray-1A

#8

Post by fentonc » Mon, Oct 13, 2014, 11:44 AM UTC

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/

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/

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/

Re: Homebrew Cray-1A

#9

Post by timdiggerm » Mon, Oct 13, 2014, 12:46 PM UTC

fentonc wrote: post #8

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/ 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/ Andras Tantos and I have been collaborating on this together for a whil…

Maybe you should link these pages together better

Re: Homebrew Cray-1A

#10

Post by timdiggerm » Mon, Oct 13, 2014, 12:47 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #3

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.

I wonder if anyone's asked the National Cryptologic Museum/NSA