Mod of the Month - January 2010

Cray-1 by Pfaffen

Project Log: Here

Supercomputers these days are usually pretty bland affairs. Yes they're powerful - considerably more so than those produced in the 1970's by the likes of Cray Research but they're not much to look at.

They're not quite as bland as the average beige PC case but rows of black boxes and LEDs don't have nearly as much character as those produced 30 years ago.

Pfaffen clearly shares the same view and his new scratch build has grabbed some serious attention already despite his project log entitled 'Cray-1' only going up on 19th January.

Based upon Seymour Cray's hugely popular supercomputer that was announced in 1975, it's already taking form and has caught the eye of several of us here at bit-tech.






The build will house two complete PCs and some initial designs and mark ups on the first sections of wood give a glimpse of how things will will fit in the final PC.


Wood will be the choice of material for much of the project by the looks of things and it's already taking it's familiar hexadecagonal symmetric form. What amazed us is just how much it looks like the original Cray-1 and there's clearly plenty of work gone in to the project already with more than a few bits of wood to deal with.


Above we can see some of these sections coming together - it's great when a project starts taking up an entire room! We can also see the sections receiving what appears to be a coat of primer with later updates mentioning the intention to match one of the original colourful Cray-1 machines.


Above is one of the Cray-1 supercomputers and on the right, Pfaffen's smaller version. This is definitely one to watch and we can't wait to see it in its finished form. If you'd like to vote for his replica of Cray's 250 megaflop classic, head over to the forums.