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Supercomputer Figure Dies (fwd)
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> From [email protected] Sat Oct 5 17:10:30 1996
> Date: Sat, 5 Oct 1996 17:10:43 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Todd Graham Lewis <[email protected]>
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Supercomputer Figure Dies
> Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.91.961005170759.3192M-100000@reflections.mindspring.com>
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> ----------
> (From Reuters -- 5 October 1996)
>
> Seymour Cray, known as the father of the supercomputer, died today nearly
> two weeks after suffering serious injuries in a car accident, a hospital
> spokeswoman said. Cray, 71, had been in the hospital since Sept. 22 when
> his vehicle was hit by another car on an interstate in Colorado Springs.
> Cray is credited with developing the first fully transistorized
> supercomputer in 1958, and after he formed his own company bearing his name
> in the 1970s, his name became synonymous with cutting-edge technology.
> ----------
>
> Let us all observe a moment fo silence for the great one, Seymour Cray.
> My favorite Cray story is this one:
>
> What kind of tools does a Real Programmer use? In
> theory, a Real Programmer could run his programs by keying
> them into the front panel of the computer. Back in the days
> when computers had front panels, this was actually done
> occasionally. Your typical Real Programmer knew the entire
> bootstrap loader by memory in hex, and toggled it in when-
> ever it got destroyed by his program. (Back then, memory was
> memory -- it didn't go away when the power went off. Today,
> memory either forgets things when you don't want it to, or
> remembers things long after they're better forgotten.)
> Legend has it that Seymour Cray, inventor of the Cray I
> supercomputer and most of Control Data's computers, actually
> toggled the first operating system for the CDC7600 in on the
> front panel from memory when it was first powered on. Sey-
> mour, needless to say, is a Real Programmer.
>
> http://www.visi.com/~nathan/humor/comphumor/real.programmer.stories.html
>
>
> __
> Todd Graham Lewis Linux! Core Engineering
> Mindspring Enterprises [email protected] (800) 719 4664, x2804
>