The board section in this pendant 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 pendants are made right here at Mini Museum, with a section of Cray-1 Supercomputer Module Board set into a sterling silver backing. The board sections are also sealed with a layer of resin. An 18" silver chain is also included. It ships in a hinged black jewelry box with an informational card about the computer tucked under the padded insert.

Both black and brown module pieces are available, with each featuring details from the module board. The necklace is offered in a "blind box" style and the exact pattern on the module board is unique to each necklace.

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.