CDC 6600
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| CDC 6600 | |
|---|---|
| Name | CDC 6600 |
| Developer | Seymour Cray, Control Data Corporation |
| Family | CDC 6000 series |
| Released | 1964 |
| Discontinued | 1972 |
| Media | Magnetic tape, Punched card |
| Os | SCOPE (operating system), COS (operating system) |
| Cpu | 60-bit CPU |
| Memory | 10,000 60-bit words (initial) |
| Successor | CDC 7600 |
CDC 6600 The CDC 6600 was a landmark high-performance supercomputer designed by Seymour Cray and produced by Control Data Corporation in the 1960s. It achieved unprecedented throughput and influenced subsequent designs across IBM, Cray Research, Hewlett-Packard, and Burroughs Corporation. The system played a central role in computing at institutions such as Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Design and Architecture
The architecture combined a central 60-bit CPU with multiple peripheral processors to offload I/O and system control, echoing concepts seen later at IBM 360 and influencing Cray-1 designs. The CDC 6600 used a scoreboard technique for instruction scheduling, related to work at IBM Research and contemporary with developments at Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The machine emphasized instruction-level parallelism and pipelining similar to ideas pursued by John von Neumann critics and proponents like Alan Turing and Maurice Wilkes. Its packaging, cooling, and chassis layout drew on industrial practices from Bell Labs and manufacturing approaches used by General Electric and Raytheon.
Hardware Components
The hardware included a central processor with ten peripheral I/O processor units, multiple functional units, and a scalar datapath, paralleling designs in DEC PDP-10 and later in Cray Research systems. Memory was implemented with core storage comparable to systems at IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center and could be extended in installations at Argonne National Laboratory and NASA centers. The system chassis integrated extensive cooling reminiscent of solutions at DuPont and General Motors facilities. Notable component vendors included firms associated with Fairchild Semiconductor and Texas Instruments who supplied supporting electronics used across computing projects at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and CERN.
Performance and Benchmarks
At introduction, the system was the fastest computer in the world, outperforming contemporaries from IBM and Honeywell on floating-point workloads relevant to Los Alamos National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory simulations. Benchmarks used by scientific centers compared performance on linear algebra and numerical simulation tasks similar to problems tackled at Princeton University and Caltech. The CDC 6600's throughput shaped computational expectations at University of Cambridge and Imperial College London research groups and set targets later met by Cray-1 and CDC 7600 systems.
Operating System and Software
Operating environments included SCOPE and COS, developed internally at Control Data Corporation and adapted by sites such as Argonne National Laboratory and Brookhaven National Laboratory. High-level languages and compilers implemented for the system included FORTRAN variants used at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, proprietary tools influenced by compiler theory from Princeton University, and scientific libraries later paralleled by efforts at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The machine supported batch processing workflows similar to those at Bell Labs and interactive timesharing experimentation comparable to work at University of California, Berkeley.
Development History and Production
Design led by Seymour Cray within Control Data followed industrial and academic collaborations with centers such as Lincoln Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories. Prototypes were built and evaluated at Control Data Research facilities and deployed to installations at NASA Ames Research Center, Argonne National Laboratory, and defense-related labs including Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Production and sales involved negotiations with institutions like National Science Foundation-funded centers and international customers across United Kingdom, France, and Japan research sites. The 6600's commercial trajectory influenced corporate strategy at Control Data Corporation and competitive responses from IBM and Honeywell International.
Legacy and Influence
The architectural concepts and engineering practices pioneered resonated through the rise of supercomputing centers, influencing Cray Research designs, procurement at National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, and academic curricula at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University. Its emphasis on peripheral processors informed I/O subsystem design at DEC and later at Silicon Graphics. The system appears in historical retrospectives alongside milestones such as ENIAC, UNIVAC I, and the IBM 701 and is studied in archives at institutions like Computer History Museum and National Museum of Computing. The CDC 6600's combination of performance, packaging, and systems software shaped discussions at conferences sponsored by ACM and IEEE and inspired generations of computer architects working at organizations such as Intel, AMD, and Nvidia.