Thread

Watson Jr. memo about CDC 6600 (1963)

44 points · 23 comments · mooreds

rbanffy · 1791031740 · focus · HN ↗
Interesting to note the question had the answer all along. How would a modest effort outrun a vast organisation?
I never imagined he’d be caught by that mistake.
1. gshubert17 · 1791068966 · focus · HN ↗
  Cray's reply was sardonic: "It seems like Mr. Watson has answered his own question."
  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CDC_6600" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CDC_6600
  1. rbanffy · 1791111002 · focus · HN ↗
    Cray must have been a very funny person.
    bayouborne · 1791127273 · focus · HN ↗
    "You need a little bit of logic... and programmer here and there"
    --
    "So, let me tell you a little bit, a few of the problems, that ah, and the solutions that I see in building large computers. First of all... I think that building large computers should be done with the fewest possible people. One is perfect, but you can't quite work with one. So.. the next best thing is about 12."
    "The reason you need 12 is you kind of need one person from each of the disciplines that are necessary. You need a mechanical engineer to build the box that it'll go in. You need an electrical engineer to put the circuit together. You need a little bit of logic... and programmer here and there And you need a secretary of course. But not very many."
    <a href="https://managingdesignanddevelopment.blogspot.com/2022/09" rel="nofollow">https://managingdesignanddevelopment.blogspot.com/2022/09
    jhbadger · 1791180565 · focus · HN ↗
    Cray had a funny quote on the virtues of fast CPUs over parallelism "If you were plowing a field, which would you rather use? Two strong oxen or 1024 chickens?". Of course history has shown that the "chickens" was the strategy the field went with.
    krige · 1791184746 · focus · HN ↗
    Yeah, but only once they managed to breed chickens as strong as an ox.

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