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Cray X-MP Simulator Resurrects Piece of Computer History
An anonymous reader writes "If you have a fascination with old supercomputers, like I do, this project might tickle your interest: A functional simulation of a Cray X-MP supercomputer, which can boot to its old batch operating system, called COS. It's complete with hard drive and tape simulation (no punch card readers, sorry) and consoles. Source code and binaries are available. You can also read about the journey that got me there, like recovering the OS image from a 30 year old hard drive or reverse-engineering CRAY machine code to understand undocumented tape drive operation and disk file-systems."
If you want to be anonymous, linking to your blog with your full name probably isn't the way to go!
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
For the complete simulation, you need to use a generator load tester to burn the 100 or so kilowatts that the machine used.
No punchcard readers? OMGWTFBBQ!!111eleventy
LAME!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
if SGI wouldn't have deliberately destroyed all the old documentation and software when they bought Cray.
The plush toy in the photo makes the computations go faster.
using 2 inch copper bars, connect to a bridge with stainless steel bolts and lockwashers. use anti-oxide paste....
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
There are a bunch of other old computer emulators around such as the IBM 360/370/380/390 http://www.hercules-390.eu/ on which you can run OS\360, MVS and some other IBM OSes http://www.ibiblio.org/jmaynard/
Also the TI990 minicomputer with the DX10 OS here http://www.cozx.com/~dpitts/ti990.html
It is great that people are preserving these things so that programmers of the future will have a chance to experience how things were in the early days. When you see the limitations that programmers had to work with, it is more understandable why they did things the way that they did.
and would it be faster than the original?
The soft toy suggests the image comes from Australia. Don't ask I just know!
Now I can sequence that old dinosaur DNA I got from this chunk of amber sitting in my closet!
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
You will probably realise you're not even close. This is truly nerdy, and I love it.
Stuff like this makes putting up with all the daily bitcoin etc crap worthwhile.
Thanks!
I hope he sends a copy to the Computer History Museum. They already have an operational Babbage Difference Engine and a PDP-1. A Cray would be very neat. For extra credit, he needs to find the SE Test Pack...that should have all kinds of neat code on it.
No cray games existed...
Unless you include the ones trying to capture all the CPU time for your own job.
COS was a batch only system. One of its primary uses was simulation - but not real time.
There had to be a port of Advent for the Cray.
Can't anyone cough up some disk images for this guy, or are copyright issues the crux of the matter? Admittedly, even though it doesn't do much other than boot up, it is still so very cool.
John Francis
Has anyone built their own Cray in hardware? There are a lot of logic arrays available that should make it a piece of cake.
You can use an old sofa for the case.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
I saw X-MP and immediately thought they had a Cray simulate an XMP burst, and I rushed to open the article and read all about the latest #ingress news.
Now I realize ... I have no life!
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
No, there are no copies left that anyone is willing to admit to having.
People have been trying to find Cray 1 series software for over five years now, and that one disk pack is all that is known to have survived.
Yes, that was where the disk pack came from; someone trying to build a Cray 1 in an FPGA.
This area produced Plutonium for nuclear weapons; supplying the fuel for the Trinity and Fat Man atomic bombs.
Plutonium production continued up to the late 1980's (or until Chernobyl); for peaceful purposes of course.
The Hanford project as it was called; long as I can remember they had a small museum explaining the project.
When they moved it from the recreational area (original location) to the the Federal Building a few Cray computers were added and used
as seating areas. A small sign near them saying they were Crays but just circular seating if anybody needed to rest.
I had a friend who programed the Cray's, sometimes he would call just to chat; but it could be a problem. He would always be near the cooling system
so his phone had a receiver cut off button. He'd say something then hit the button so the cooling system wasn't heard in the back ground making
a conversation possible. I don't know if he called on his rounds or he was located next to the coolers, but they were loud.
At one of the Government auctions I had a chance to bid on and even of purchased a Cray, but it would be spendy as junk goes. :} )
An old Univac system was once auctioned (I thought about bidding on it - it would of taken up the entire house and a good part of the yard
never met it's lowest bid due to the precious metals involved.
A Cray computer in my house, I imagine I'd of used it as a dysfunctional couch as well, but a hell of a conversation piece.
I had a storage shed that was the wooden box shipped box for some multi million computer, lots of great stuff could be scavenged in this area while D.O.E.
was spending money.
*Many key words were used here, Hello again NSA.*
From the article, "I’ll only leave some of the most spectacular failures in for entertainment value."
Beautiful. Reminds me of a test pilot of yore at Edwards, "In spite of all the damn fool things I did, the plane managed to land itself."
A truly nerdy project done by a true nerd. Bravo.
Nice quote