This board was originally part of the Cray-1 Supercomputer installed at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Introduced in 1975, the complete Cray-1 weighed 5.5 tons and was capable of 80 million floating-point operations per second.

The specimen comes in two varieties, one with a segment of a Module Board and one with both a board and IC Chip. It is housed in an acrylic jar that is encased within a glass-topped riker display box. The box measures 4 1/2" x 3 1/2". A small information card is also included, which serves as the certificate of authenticity.

This specimen is offered in a "blind box" style. Color and size of the Module Board fragments and IC Chips varies. We have tried to randomize the order as much as possible, but if you order more than one specimen you may receive a duplicate color though the patterns on the board are likely to be unique.

It is important to note that the boards were removed after the Cray-1 was decommissioned. As a result, some chips pictured have later serial dates since newer boards were installed to replace failed boards over time.

Furthermore, while Fairchild chips were most often used throughout the Cray-1, in certain circumstances both Motorola and Fujitsu SRAMs were occasionally substitutedin place of the Fairchild 10415FC.

Earlier attempts to create a viable supercomputer involved the use of incredibly complex integrated circuits. The Cray-1 used just three different types of integrated circuits across the entire machine, vastly simplifying the architecture. For cooling, freon circulated through stainless steel tubing bonded between vertical wedges of aluminum fitted between the stacks of circuit boards.

Cray's innovations yielded a machine that was so advanced that a bidding war ensued for the first machine off the line. This made the Cray-1 the first commercially successful supercomputer and launched the legend that became Cray Research.

The iconic look of the Cray-1 is more than just 1970's aesthetics at play. Everything was thought through to provide advantages in performance.

The columnar design of the cabinet allowed Cray to minimize the amount of wiring between processing stacks, while the cushions ringing the unit covered the enormous power supplies at the base of each tower.

Want to see more of the original machine's design? Check out the 1976 system brocure here.

Additionally, you can check out a talk given by Seymour Cray discussing the Cray-1 and the field of computers.

Fitting for such a revolutionary machine, Cray-1’s namesake was a legend in the world of early digital computers. A code-breaking veteran of World War Two, Seymour Cray worked for several prestigious computer firms, eventually founding Control Data Corporation in 1957. In this article, we take an even deeper dive into Mr. Cray's backstory and the history of the Cray-1.