Do you mean my personal computer or the Cray in the basement?

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Level 7

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Do you mean my personal computer or the Cray in the basement?

The Museo de Historia de la Computación in Spain has unveiled a 1:1 scale visual replica of the famous Cray-1 supercomputer from 1976. Instead of sourcing expensive, cutting-edge tech to run the system, the creative team powered the project with 30 2012-era Mac Minis. Developed over 18 months, the project serves as a 50th-anniversary tribute to the Cray-1 and Apple’s founding.

The museum reportedly achieved 1.5 teraflops [...] The peak theoretical performance of the original Cray-1 was approximately 160 megaflops [...] Rather than opting for a more standard Linux distribution, the team found that macOS Mojave (10.14) met their project needs.

...this reminds me of a quote from The Macintosh Bible, Fourth Edition, 1992:

Maybe they feel that the P in PC helps make it clear that you’re referring to a personal computer and that without that qualification, you might ask someone what kind of computer they use at home and get an answer like, “Do you mean my personal computer or the Cray in the basement?”

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/10/a-cray-1-supercomputer-replica-from-30-obsolete-mac-minis/

Posted on Oct 13, 2026 12:15 AM

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Answer 1

John Galt

Level 10

161,912 points

Oct 13, 2026 7:47 AM in response to Matti Haveri

The P in Personal has to be considered in light of the fact a Cray was never intended for personal needs. If you wanted to use one, you had to rent processing time by the minute. I don't recall the rate but a Cray cost several million dollars ($5 - $8 million depending on configuration) back in the mid-70s when that was a lot of money.

How much did a 2012 era Mini cost? About $1000? Thirty of them, for 10,000 x the processing power? That's a steal.

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