Control Data Corporation (CDC) 6600

The Control Data 6600 was designed by Seymour Cray and Jim Thornton in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin and released in 1964. It was the first commercially successful supercomputer, primarily serving nuclear research. As Control Data was growing rapidly in Minneapolis, he bought some land in his home town of Chippewa Falls and moved his team out there to focus on supercomputers rather than the business machines that were selling like hotcakes. Thus their new machine ran the Chippewa operating system to schedule and manage jobs. The desire to work on supercomputers rather than business machines would continue to create more rifts between Cray and Control Data until he left to found Cray Computers in 1972, releasing the iconic Cray-1 in 1975.

For a common, realistic layout of the machine, print twice and arrange the panels in a cross, so they memory panels are closest to one another. Monitors can be in front of or within the crossings.

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