Seymour Cray | |
---|---|
Born | Seymour Roger Cray September 28, 1925 Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, US |
Died | October 5, 1996 Colorado Springs, Colorado, US |
(aged 71)
Fields | Applied mathematician, computer scientist, and electrical engineer |
Institutions |
Engineering Research Associates Control Data Corporation Cray Research Cray Computer Corporation SRC Computers |
Alma mater | University of Minnesota |
Known for | Supercomputers |
Seymour Roger Cray (September 28, 1925 – October 5, 1996) was an American electrical engineer and supercomputer architect who designed a series of computers that were the fastest in the world for decades, and founded Cray Research which built many of these machines. Called "the father of supercomputing," Cray has been credited with creating the supercomputer industry.Joel S. Birnbaum, then chief technology officer of Hewlett-Packard, said of him: "It seems impossible to exaggerate the effect he had on the industry; many of the things that high performance computers now do routinely were at the farthest edge of credibility when Seymour envisioned them."
Cray was born in 1925 in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, to Seymour R. and Lillian Cray. His father was a civil engineer who fostered Cray's interest in science and engineering. As early as the age of ten he was able to build a device out of Erector Set components that converted punched paper tape into Morse code signals. The basement of the family home was given over to the young Cray as a "laboratory".
Cray graduated from Chippewa Falls High School in 1943 before being drafted for World War II as a radio operator. He saw action in Europe, and then moved to the Pacific theatre where he worked on breaking Japanese naval codes. On his return to the United States he received a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering at the University of Minnesota, graduating in 1949, followed by a M.Sc. in applied mathematics in 1951.