Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!lll-winken!uunet!sco!seanf
From: seanf@sco.COM (Sean Fagan)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: CDC 8600
Keywords: CDC 8600
Message-ID: <2535@scolex.sco.COM>
Date: 10 Apr 89 20:43:19 GMT
References: <13998@sequent.UUCP> <747@key.COM> <7948@super.ORG>
Reply-To: seanf@scolex.UUCP (Sean Fagan)
Organization: The Committee to Elect Seymour, Donald, and Dennis God
Lines: 41

In article <7948@super.ORG> mjt@super.UUCP (Michael J. Tighe) writes:
>Does anyone have any information on the CDC 8600? I saw a picture of
>it recently. About all I know is it was built around 1973, was an
>N-gon type shape (about the same size as a Cray-3, but with more sides). 
>And the modules were quite large (approximately 3" x 8" x 5").

Dredging through my memory, I come across a few third+-hand stories about
Seymour (Cray, that is), CDC, and the future of computing.

The stories I heard had Seymour Cray working on a successor the the 7600,
which was a successor to the 6600, which was to be called the 8600.
Supposedly, this marvelous (being designed by Seymour, could it be anything
else?) device would have a neat new idea, called "vectors," but would,
otherwise, resemble the 7600 (except for being 64-bits instead of 60).

At the same time, CDC had a project called the "Star," which also had
vectors, but of a different sort.  The Star's vectors were memory-to-memory,
and it had virtual memory (something that Seymour either doesn't believe in
or doesn't understand 8-)).  After both groups spent gobs of money, Seymour
was told that the Star would get their full attention now, not the 8600.
Seymour then left, worked as a consultant for IBM, and founded Cray
Research, Inc.

The rest is history, of course...

>I also heard it didn't work. That's why it was never put into
>production. Any info on architecture, instruction set, chip type,
>clock times or memory would be nice.

"Chip"?  Surely you jest...  The Star, however, never worked properly.
Evenutally, a successor called the 205 was built, and that worked properly
(it was fast, but still slower than the Cray-1).  Eventually, another
company split off from CDC, called ETA Systems, and built a *very* fast 205
clone, called the ETA-10.

I think the machine you saw a picture of was probably a Star, not an 8600...

-- 
Sean Eric Fagan  | "An acid is like a woman:  a good one will eat
seanf@sco.UUCP   |  through your pants." -- Mel Gibson, Saturday Night Live
(408) 458-1422   | Any opinions expressed are my own, not my employers'.