Sentimental Sundays - Control Data Corporation DD60
- Tony Fortunato
- 2 hours ago
- 2 min read
Control Data Corporation (CDC) was a prominent mainframe and supercomputer company that operated through much of the 1960s, alongside other major U.S. computer companies like IBM and DEC. One of CDC's notable products was the CDC 6600, which was the flagship of the 6000 series of mainframe computer systems.
The CDC 6600 was generally considered the first successful supercomputer, outperforming the IBM 7030 Stretch by a factor of three and achieving a performance of up to three megaFLOPS. It held the title of the world's fastest computer from 1964 to 1969, when it was succeeded by the CDC 7600. The CDC 6600 was a must-have system in high-end scientific and mathematical computing, with deliveries to prestigious institutions such as the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, CERN, and the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory. At least 100 CDC 6600s were delivered in total, and one can be seen at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California.
CDC's influence extended beyond the CDC 6600, as the company was known for its innovative engineering, particularly the work of Seymour Cray, who developed a series of fast computers that were considered the fastest in the world at the time. Cray's contributions were pivotal in establishing CDC's reputation and market position. However, in the 1970s, Cray left CDC to found Cray Research (CRI), which continued to design and manufacture supercomputers. Despite this loss, CDC remained a significant player in the computer industry until the late 1980s, when it began to withdraw from computer manufacturing due to financial losses. In 1992, CDC established Control Data Systems, Inc., to continue its operations.
Trivia about Control Data Corporation includes its founding by a group of engineers and its status as one of the nine key U.S. computer companies through most of the 1960s. CDC was highly regarded and well-known throughout the industry during this period, making significant contributions to the development of mainframe and supercomputer technology.
Introduction
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