The most striking thing to me about IBM memos from this era is just how literate executives were. These days most VPs struggle to write a single sentence worth reading.
Many people from that era were well read and well spoken. He in particular sounded like he had some interesting life experiences: air force pilot, ambassador to the Soviet Union, president of the Boy Scouts, etc.
I used CDC computers 1986-92. They sucked, and CDC employees could not comprehend that they sucked. They had convinced themselves that their alternate universe was real.
One can argue that CDC was obliviously dead by the early 70s.
Incompatible, increasingly archaic platforms, the best of those optimal for batch Fortran number crunching, counter to industry growth/interest. Organizational metastasis with a next gen platform (Cyber 180 as Star was stillborn - CISC from hell as 2nd system(s) syndrome) only at the end of the decade. Standards, coupled with profound organizational incompetence, ground it to dust. They made really good OEM disk drives for a while but sold the business off to fund their continuing failures.
There really needs to be a history that’s not an encomium to William Norris, Philosopher King of CDC.
The 180/990 and the 205 were a pretty good FORTRAN vector machines if that was the problem you wanted to solve; the compiler was quite good. The other 170/180s were...for everything else...not so much. That boat had sailed.
The most striking thing to me about IBM memos from this era is just how literate executives were. These days most VPs struggle to write a single sentence worth reading.
Many people from that era were well read and well spoken. He in particular sounded like he had some interesting life experiences: air force pilot, ambassador to the Soviet Union, president of the Boy Scouts, etc.
So the CDC 6600 wasn't considered a RISC machine, but a precursor?
Interesting to note the question had the answer all along. How would a modest effort outrun a vast organisation?
I never imagined he’d be caught by that mistake.
Cray's reply was sardonic: "It seems like Mr. Watson has answered his own question."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CDC_6600
He wasn't. The CDC 6600 cost IBM some prestige, but it didn't put a dent in IBM's sales, which were about to skyrocket due to the 360 series.
6600
I used CDC computers 1986-92. They sucked, and CDC employees could not comprehend that they sucked. They had convinced themselves that their alternate universe was real.
That was many, many years after Cray had left. By the 80s, CDC was a shell of its former self.
One can argue that CDC was obliviously dead by the early 70s.
Incompatible, increasingly archaic platforms, the best of those optimal for batch Fortran number crunching, counter to industry growth/interest. Organizational metastasis with a next gen platform (Cyber 180 as Star was stillborn - CISC from hell as 2nd system(s) syndrome) only at the end of the decade. Standards, coupled with profound organizational incompetence, ground it to dust. They made really good OEM disk drives for a while but sold the business off to fund their continuing failures.
There really needs to be a history that’s not an encomium to William Norris, Philosopher King of CDC.
What...you didn't like NOS/VE?
The 180/990 and the 205 were a pretty good FORTRAN vector machines if that was the problem you wanted to solve; the compiler was quite good. The other 170/180s were...for everything else...not so much. That boat had sailed.