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The Supermen: The Story of Seymour Cray and the Technical Wizards Behind the Supercomputer
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All the comments and stories posted to Hacker News that reference this book.I can give you the names of a handful of books that might be useful. Some are more technical, some less so. Some are more about personalities, some about the business aspects of things, some more about the actual technology. I don't really have time to try and categorize them all, so here's a big dump of the ones I have and/or am familiar with that seem at least somewhat related.The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering - https://www.amazon.com/Mythical-Man-Month-Software-Engineeri...
Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution - https://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Computer-Revolution-Steven-Le...
The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage - https://www.amazon.com/Cuckoos-Egg-Tracking-Computer-Espiona...
Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet - https://www.amazon.com/Where-Wizards-Stay-Up-Late/dp/0684832...
Open: How Compaq Ended IBM's PC Domination and Helped Invent Modern Computing - https://www.amazon.com/Open-Compaq-Domination-Helped-Computi...
Decline and Fall of the American Programmer - https://www.amazon.com/Decline-American-Programmer-Yourdon-1...
Rise and Resurrection of the American Programmer - https://www.amazon.com/dp/013121831X/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&key...
Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date - https://www.amazon.com/Robert-X-Cringely/dp/0887308554/ref=s...
Softwar: An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle - https://www.amazon.com/Softwar-Intimate-Portrait-Ellison-Ora...
Winners, Losers & Microsoft - https://www.amazon.com/Winners-Losers-Microsoft-Competition-...
Microsoft Secrets - https://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Secrets-audiobook/dp/B019G2...
The Friendly Orange Glow: The Untold Story of the PLATO System and the Dawn of Cyberculture - https://www.amazon.com/The-Friendly-Orange-Glow-audiobook/dp...
Troublemakers: Silicon Valley's Coming of Age - https://www.amazon.com/Troublemakers-Silicon-Valleys-Coming-...
Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire - https://www.amazon.com/Hard-Drive-Making-Microsoft-Empire/dp...
Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture - https://www.amazon.com/Masters-Doom-Created-Transformed-Cult...
The Supermen: The Story of Seymour Cray and The Technical Wizards Behind the Supercomputer - https://www.amazon.com/Supermen-Seymour-Technical-Wizards-Su...
Bitwise: A Life in Code - https://www.amazon.com/Bitwise-Life-Code-David-Auerbach/dp/1...
Gates - https://www.amazon.com/Gates-Microsofts-Reinvented-Industry-...
We Are The Nerds - https://www.amazon.com/We-Are-Nerds-audiobook/dp/B07H5Q5JGS/...
A People's History of Computing In The United States - https://www.amazon.com/Peoples-History-Computing-United-Stat...
Fire In The Valley: The Birth and Death of the Personal Computer - https://www.amazon.com/Fire-in-Valley-audiobook/dp/B071YYZJG...
How The Internet Happened: From Netscape to the iPhone - https://www.amazon.com/How-Internet-Happened-Netscape-iPhone...
Steve Jobs - https://www.amazon.com/Steve-Jobs-Walter-Isaacson/dp/1451648...
The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation - https://www.amazon.com/Idea-Factory-Great-American-Innovatio...
Coders - https://www.amazon.com/Coders-Making-Tribe-Remaking-World/dp...
Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software - https://www.amazon.com/Dreaming-in-Code-Scott-Rosenberg-audi...
The Pentagon's Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America's Top-Secret Military Research Agency - https://www.amazon.com/Pentagons-Brain-Uncensored-Americas-T...
The Imagineers of War: The Untold Story of DARPA, the Pentagon Agency That Changed the World - https://www.amazon.com/Imagineers-War-Untold-Pentagon-Change...
The Technical and Social History of Software Engineering - https://www.amazon.com/Technical-Social-History-Software-Eng...
Also...
"The Mother of All Demos" by Doug Englebart - https://youtu.be/yJDv-zdhzMY
"Jobs vs Gates" - https://www.amazon.com/Jobs-Vs-Gates-Hippie-Nerd/dp/B077KB96...
"Welcome to Macintosh" - https://www.amazon.com/Welcome-Macintosh-Guy-Kawasaki/dp/B00...
"Pirates of Silicon Valley" - https://www.amazon.com/Pirates-Silicon-Valley-Noah-Wyle/dp/B...
"Jobs" - https://www.amazon.com/Jobs-Ashton-Kutcher/dp/B00GME2NCG/ref...
And while not a documentary, or meant to be totally historically accurate, the TV show "Halt and Catch Fire" captures a lot of the feel of the early days of the PC era, through to the advent of the Internet era.
https://www.amazon.com/I-O/dp/B00KCXJCEK/ref=sr_1_1?crid=U6Z...
And there's a ton of Macintosh history stuff captured at:
A fun read is https://www.amazon.com/Supermen-Seymour-Technical-Wizards-Su...
That's not always as absurd as it sounds. Particularly talented people can do it. The case of Seymour Cray, admittedly an outlier on the talent side, comes to mind. He was basically a senior team lead from the moment he got his first job, and that was in 1951.I got that from this wonderful book, btw: https://www.amazon.com/Supermen-Seymour-Technical-Wizards-Su...
⬐ sverhagenYou giving an example all the way back to 1951 makes it sound like it is indeed almost always as absurd as it sounds...⬐ o-__-oMy first job I accepted was a help desk tech. In 8 weeks I was a sr engineer. Why? I was the only person who stood up and suggested a way to test and isolate a problem that was happening on a few Sun servers. Mind you I had zero exp with sun at this point, but I showed initiative. This was circa 2000⬐ dangI didn't mention Cray because there aren't others! He's just endlessly fascinating.I mentioned 1951 because organizations were so much less flexible back then, making the example more compelling. I was going to say that, but then I remembered that in the book it talks about how the engineers at that company would bring their dogs to work, so it was obviously atypical.
Wonder whats left of old Cray besides the name ?Book tip: https://www.amazon.com/Supermen-Seymour-Technical-Wizards-Su...
⬐ jjthebluntChapel the programming language is really from Cray, in the spirit of classical Cray.⬐ cbcoutinhoCray has produced (still producing?) some compilers for HPC applications that are considered pretty decent. At the very least, some very large legacy codes got caught up in the vendor lock-out - in software that usually means non-portable preprocessor directives for example.⬐ ams6110Not a lot. They sold off their interconnect technology which was their last real secret sauce. Now they really just sell turnkey x86 HPC clusters with some mainframe-esque job dispatch software.⬐ ldite⬐ nategri...turnkey HPC clusters with liquid cooling, DC power distribution, extraordinarily dense compute blades, custom HPC network fabrics, and embedded management processors throughout to gather monitoring data.⬐ pinewurstEven though Cray sold the rights to Aries (the interconnect) to Intel, they still sell x86 Aries based systems - XC30, XC40, XC50. They also sell more generic HPC clusters, originally from Appro whom they bought in 2012.⬐ velox_ioIt's a shame you can't get a cable to link computers via PCIe (supports cables over 3m[0]). Multiple x16 connections that would lead to some decent bandwidth while being low-latency, without the network overhead or shelling out for high-end switches.You can skip halfway. [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5xvwPa3r7M
⬐ wmfPCIe fabrics exist but they're not as great as you might expect. Because of the slow 8 Gbps lane speed the cables are enormous and the switches support very few ports. And the DMA engine may not give you the performance you expect if it doesn't have NIC-like features.https://www.broadcom.com/applications/datacenter-networking/...
⬐ semi-extrinsicUsing dual port adapters, you can do a three-node Infiniband ring with no routers involved and get full speed. Dual port FDR (40 Gbit/s) cards are about $150 on Ebay nowadays. If you've bought the hardware to warrant needing such a setup (i.e. 3 dual-socket Xeon servers), that's a very negligible cost.I think I clicked through to the comments because I was wondering exactly this. Thanks for the rec.
The story of how Cray and his team created the CDC 6600 is really great [0]. Cray decided they had to get away from corporate interference so he picked a bucolic town a couple hours away from corporate HQ, moved his whole team there, and they worked in peace to develop a machine that was 10x faster than anything else.It's unclear today if quantum computers will be useful, just as it was unclear in 1962 if supercomputers for large scientific numerical calculations would be useful. It'll be interesting to see.
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Supermen-Seymour-Technical-Wizards-Su...
Recommended reading for all Cray fans http://www.amazon.com/Supermen-Seymour-Technical-Wizards-Sup...
⬐ kabdibCame here to recommend this book. It's very good.⬐ dangA wonderful book. It's light on technical detail—well, void of it—but covers the human story and business background well, and the material is so fascinating, it's hard to believe how fascinating it is. Especially the origin story, which is like the early history of Silicon Valley in an alternate universe of the Midwest. People bringing their dogs to work. CDC getting started by selling stock out of a station wagon. Cray moving his lab further and further away from the managers. It's all so archetypal, most of all Cray himself.A pattern that recurs through the book is that Cray's achievements worked out best when he collaborated with the much lesser-known Les Davis, who was a master of organization and execution. A good local newspaper article from Davis as of a few years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10334470. I hope someone has gotten a full oral history from Mr. Davis.
For the question "What are some of the best books to learn from that you recommend for a young startup founder?", I decided to transcribe the answers..
"Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future" - http://www.amazon.com/Zero-One-Notes-Startups-Future/dp/0804...
"Republic" - http://www.amazon.com/Republic-Hackett-Classics-Plato/dp/087... (classic, feel free to grab a PDF)
"The Principia : Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy" - http://www.amazon.com/Principia-Mathematical-Principles-Natu... (classic, feel free to grab a PDF)
"Thinking, Fast and Slow" - http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/...
"Molecular Biology of the Cell" - http://www.amazon.com/Molecular-Biology-Cell-Bruce-Alberts/d... (different edition, forgive me; free through NCBI, thanks jkimmel!)
"Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age" - http://www.amazon.com/Dealers-Lightning-Xerox-PARC-Computer/...
"The Supermen: The Story of Seymour Cray and the Technical Wizards Behind the Supercomputer" - http://www.amazon.com/Supermen-Seymour-Technical-Wizards-Sup... (note: "that one's particularly good")
"Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories" - http://www.amazon.com/Hateship-Friendship-Courtship-Loveship...
"The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership" - http://www.amazon.com/Score-Takes-Care-Itself-Philosophy/dp/...
"The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time" - http://www.amazon.com/Beak-Finch-Story-Evolution-Time/dp/067...
"The Constitutional Convention: A Narrative History from the Notes of James Madison" - http://www.amazon.com/Constitutional-Convention-Narrative-Hi...
"The Art Of War for Lovers" - http://www.amazon.com/The-ART-WAR-FOR-LOVERS/dp/0671000632 (fixed! sorry about that...)
"Hold 'em Poker: For Advanced Players" - http://www.amazon.com/Hold-em-Poker-Advanced-Players/dp/1880...
"Solution Selling: Creating Buyers in Difficult Selling Markets" - http://www.amazon.com/Solution-Selling-Creating-Difficult-Ma...
"The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition" - http://www.amazon.com/Endurance-Shackletons-Legendary-Antarc...
"Winning" - http://www.amazon.com/Winning-Jack-Welch/dp/0060753943/
I wish he had answered in text. That would have made things easier :) However, I'm still very happy to have some new additions to my reading list!
⬐ josu>"The Art Of War"It actually is "The art of war for lovers" by Connell Cowan
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/317214.The_ART_OF_WAR_FO...
⬐ striking⬐ NoneThanks for correcting me. Those blurry frames can be tough.⬐ josuYeah, I thought it was the Sun Tzu first too, which could as well be on his list. Thank you for compiling them.None⬐ jkimmelMolecular Biology of the Cell (Alberts) is free through NCBI! Many investigators jokingly refer to it as 'the bible'.⬐ striking⬐ hashfavOoh, much appreciated! Especially since a new hardcover is ~$150. Edited to note this.⬐ oustado you see any reason he put this book in the list?⬐ kqr2Unfortunately, it doesn't look like you can read it cover to cover or download it.By agreement with the publisher, this book is accessible by the search feature, but cannot be browsed.⬐ jkimmelThis is true. However, you can get to any topic you want easily using the search feature. A Table of Contents is provided, making front-to-back reading by topic pretty trivial.I've taken many university courses using this book and managed to read all the required material on NCBI without much effort.
This is great! Do you mind if we add it to the HashFav Page? We will credit you.⬐ carleverett⬐ misiti3780You might want to make josu's correction above ^⬐ hashfav⬐ strikingThanks, we just did.I don't mind at all. Glad to be of service.im surprised to see Republic in here⬐ abrbhatThe Art of War one looks more like "The Art of War In The Middle Ages" by C.W.C.Omanhttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/89265.The_Art_of_War_in_...
http://www.amazon.com/Art-War-Middle-Ages/dp/1481954636/ref=...
⬐ samaThis is correct--art of war in the Middle Ages.
If you haven't already done so, I highly recommend reading "The SUPERMEN" by Charles J. Murray.http://www.amazon.com/Supermen-Seymour-Technical-Wizards-Sup...
Seymour Cray, the famous supercomputer architect (Cray-1, etc.), built a tunnel under his house:-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Cray , http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~toby/writing/PCW/cray.htm , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cray-1 , http://www.amazon.com/Supermen-Seymour-Technical-Wizards-Sup...Another favorite pastime was digging a tunnel under his home; he attributed the secret of his success to "visits by elves" while he worked in the tunnel: "While I'm digging in the tunnel, the elves will often come to me with solutions to my problem."
I read about it in the "Supermen" book [1], he dug extensive tunnels. Doing repetitive work makes it probably easier to do daydreaming. That's how he designed his Cray super computers architectures in his head.[1] http://www.amazon.com/The-Supermen-Seymour-Technical-Superco...
⬐ kjs3Some geniuses take long walks for inspiration, some dig tunnels and talk to elves. I don't judge.
A very good book about this topic:The Supermen: The Story of Seymour Cray and the Technical Wizards Behind the Supercomputer
http://www.amazon.com/The-Supermen-Seymour-Technical-Superco...
It's a great book about Seymour Cray (biography) that details all his work. He was one of the very best, a real hero. Sadly he died in a car accident in the nineties.