World's Most Powerful Computer

The use of the Cray 2 supercomputer, the fastest computer in the world, at ARC is detailed. The Cray 2 can perform 250 million calculations per second and has 10 times the memory of any other computer. Ames researchers are shown creating computer simulations of aircraft airflow, waterflow around a submarine, and fuel flow inside of the Space Shuttle's engines. The video also details the Cray 2's use in calculating airflow around the Shuttle and its external rockets during liftoff for the first time and in the development of the National Aero Space Plane. Released Oct. 1986.

[@billmorrison8241]

I worked for Cray back then and was proud to work for them. They did have the best around and nobody could say different. It's not just speed but the software and hardware with unsurpassed support.You can't just get a supercomputer with fast specs as your only criteria.

[@practicingthegospel]

Cray 2 had a peak performance of 3.9 billion instructions per second which probably sustained at about 2 billion, not 250 million. It was the Cray 1 that did 250 million instructions per second 10 years earlier.Today's top of the line desktop machine's CPU can deliver up to 500 billion 64 bit floating point operations per second or 1 trillion 32 bit integer operations , server class Knights Landing at 6 trillion 32 bit integer or 3 trillion 64 bit floating points per second.Top of the line graphics card can do 17 trillion 32 bit floating point or over 4 trillion 64 bit floating point per second ( 2 GPUs on a card )

[@jeremyrebelka]

fantastic machine it was around 1,9-2 GFlops and around 200KW power appetite - shocking for today standards - Imagine how to cool this monster. It would be very fast if you can approach the task in a parallel way - very specialized number cruncher. Seymour Cray was a legend - some of his ideas powered the industry for couple decades - some of them only possible to implement years later - SGI used a lot SUN also - sun4d architecture was hugely based on cray technology. thx for uploading.

[@deltagrant2]

NASA, chuckles*, Sti, Dies laughing*

[@0x1EGEN]

Now you have a computer in your pocket that can out perform this machine. I think it was impressive for a 250 Mhz computer to exist during this time.

[@GH-oi2jf]

A smart phone cannot do what a Cray-2 did, even today. It isn’t just a matter of clock speed of the processor, it is about memory size and bandwidth.

[@Kalecimus]

250 milion calculations per sec? It's a pretty good toy when compared to even nowadays desktop computers!

[@AlexOjideagu2]

the Raspberry Pi is more powerful for $30

[@JairoGrateron]

Raspberry pi 4, scimark4 benchmark 800 millions flops only one cpu.

[@The_Conspiracy_Analyst]

The Goodyear MPP, the MasPar, and the CM-5 were vastly superior machines. And as I recall, the space shuttle Challenger exploded. Coincidence???

[@klauskuhnast2394]

Cray-2 was only the second fastest supercomputer in the world. The fastest was M-13 in the Soviet Union.
This machine was built in 1984 with 2.4 GFlops.

[@cjmillsnun]

At the time, the Soviet Union denied M-13 existed...

[@madgoat2275]

Can i play minecraft with shaders on 30 fps with that pc?

[@DrabWeeds]

May be 99 fps?

[@wavellmendonca3516]

Nitemaer not 30 but 10000 fps

[@chheray1705]

XIV.V Vlogs around 99987652 fps

[@jnackmclain]

But.... Will it blend?

[@SoutohGames]

Will It Microwave?

[@asajaman7266]

can I play crysis 3 on ultra with 1000 frames a second

[@jehezz]

but will it play minesweeper?

[@vesteel]

it's nothing compared to black MIDIs

[@AustenTyler1223]

The question is..... will it run minecraft?

[@daineramosquitco5816]

if you try to, then you'll only get 1 fps or not even a single fps 🤣🤦

[@daineramosquitco5816]

Yeah.. While my POCO X3 NFC is thousands of times more powerful and faster than that.