Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!wdl1!bobw
From: bobw@wdl1.UUCP (Robert Lee Wilson Jr.)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Machines Seymour Cray has designed
Message-ID: <3490010@wdl1.UUCP>
Date: 16 Feb 88 19:52:25 GMT
References: <10948@sgi.SGI.COM>
Lines: 19

What is the status of this claim that Cray did not design the 6600?
I was a grad student at a university which was considering an upgrade from
a CDC 3600 at the time and I remember all the stuff we got, both
formal documentation and also claims from CDC employees whom we knew, when
the 6600 came out. As we got it then, Cray (and the others who had broken
away from Sperry to form CDC) had designed the 1604 (and its spinoff the
924), a committee had designed the 3600 and its spinoffs, (The kludge
design of the 3600 made this seem very believable :-)) and the 6600 was
Seymour's own baby. Of course that doesn't mean he designed every detail
of such a large product, but he was supposed to have been responsible for
all of the architecture and timing, the lock mechanisms between
processors, and in general the major breakthroughs that machine has always
seemed to represent. That is also certainly the way it is presented in the
Computer Museum in Boston.

What basis is there for this denial of the sacred writ? 

Usual disclaimer: Nobody would believe me, if they did allow me to have
opinions!