Newsgroups: comp.arch
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: CDC 6600 and TI ASC
Message-ID: <1991Mar7.215545.430@zoo.toronto.edu>
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1991 21:55:45 GMT
References: <45252@ut-emx.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <45252@ut-emx.uucp> guru@ut-emx.uucp (chen  liehgong) writes:
>Why were the CDC 6600 and the TI ASC (Advanced Scientific Computer)
>failures? I would like to have your opinions on this.

Assuming that you have confused the 6600 (successful) with the Star 100
(failure), the most basic reason why the Star and the ASC failed was that
they focussed on long-vector performance and ignored scalar performance,
on the theory that everything would vectorize extremely well.  The Cray 1
succeeded where they failed because it was a blazing-fast *scalar* machine
first and an even-faster vector machine second.
-- 
"But this *is* the simplified version   | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
for the general public."     -S. Harris |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry
