The Death of an Engineer

Greg Davis (gdavis@ghs.com)
Sat, 5 Oct 96 14:40:37 PDT


A moment of silence.

(I can't say this surprises me too much. I figured he'd end up dying
quietly soon after Cray Computers failed. Still sucks.)

-Greg

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COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo (Reuter) - Seymour Cray, known as the father of the supercomputer, died early Saturday nearly two weeks after suffering serious injuries in a car accident, a hospital spokeswoman said. He was 70. ``Seymour Cray died at 2:53 am (4:53 EDT). The cause of death was complications from massive head injuries,'' said Kate Brewster, spokeswoman at Penrose Community Hospital. Cray had been in the hospital since Sept. 22 when his Jeep Cherokee was hit by another car on Interstate-25 in Colorado Springs. ====== COMPUTERS-CRAY update at Oct 5 8:01 PDT ====== Cray is credited with developing the first fully transistorized supercomputer in 1958, and after he formed his own company bearing his name in the 1970s, his name became synonymous with cutting-edge technology. In 1957, with Bill Norris, Cray started Control Corp., and then founded Cray Research in Minnesota in 1972. Many of Cray's supercomputers -- large machines that can process large amounts of data at great speeds -- were used by the U.S. government, including the military. Cray Research was sold to Silicon Graphics Inc. and Cray began again with Cray Computer Corp. in Colorado Springs, Colorado. That filed for bankruptcy in 1995 after it failed to attract some $20 million needed from investors.