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Review Summary: An enjoyable read |
Date: 2008-01-28 |
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Details: Seymour Cray was a genius who devoted his life to high performance computing. This book does a great job of conveying the intensity it takes to be great in your field of choice. Even an exceptional man like Cray encounters major problems which cannot always be overcome.
It was also enjoyable to gain a historical perspective on the culture and work patterns we see in the computing industry today. Cray has to go to such political extremes as moving his entire team to a different town, just to protect the creative process from the day to day demands of business. Not much has changed over the years. |
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Review Summary: Thumbs up from a local reader. |
Date: 2007-01-26 |
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Details: I found the book to be a quick, enjoyable, non-challenging read. It makes an ideal "summer book" for engineers -- a rare thing for technical folks.
Read this book if you live near the Twin Cities. I live in Minneapolis, earned my degree at the U of MN, drive by the old ERA site in St. Paul frequently, live very close to the original CDC HQ on Park avenue, and work with former Cray engineers (who gave the book a strong thumbs up as well). You'll have a strong identification with the characters. The story was a great trip through local history. |
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Review Summary: Cray the super-hero that created the great supercomputers |
Date: 2007-01-23 |
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Details: This is a highly recommended book to understand the development of supercomputers, the virtues and failures of Seymour Cray, the composition of highly creative teams that created the supercomputers, the rise and fall of several computer companies. But the author's biggest success is in the depicting of the person Seymour Cray and his inner struggles in creating these machines.
This book should be read together with "Skunk Works" by Ben Rich and "Apprentice to Genius" by Robert Kanigel for anyone who is interested in the creative teams that can produce big innovations.
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Review Summary: machines for an irrelevant niche |
Date: 2006-07-10 |
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Details: You can of course read this book as a biography of Seymour Cray. But while it describes his genius, it also shows the severely constricted niche in which his company operated. The sheer cost of each supercomputer meant that the client base was restricted to the largest companies and governments. A large part of that cost was due to the custom chips and systems of chips. There never was an economy of scale with Cray's machines.
Meanwhile, other companies like Intel and AMD made CPUs for the mass market. It was these that took full advantage of Moore's Law, and ultimately drove Cray's computers into economic irrelevance. Murray does not present it this way in his book. But while there are somethings you can only do with a vector supercomputer like a Cray machine, for most things, it is far cheaper to have arrays of general purpose CPUs. |
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Review Summary: The Supermen -- details make this book |
Date: 2006-01-09 |
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Details: This was an excellent bnook for any one interested in the evolution of super computers. Perhaps even for those with no background in the industry. This is not only a story of techological change, but of a maverick as well. Small versus conglomerate. From the beginning, one reads how a small group of engineers can make somethjing extraoridinary. The book does not diminish the importance of money in the ultimate outcome.
What I liked was the specifics. The details of how a Cray machine accomplished the tasks required for the niche it was intended for. The "why" of engineering decisions and the "how" problems were resolved.
This is certainly a good read for any one interested in not only the history of the computer industry (told in the manner of a novel), but of how dedicated people can innovate, even with the ordinary. |
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out of 16 Reviews
