Part I: Preface
Lesson 1: Epigraph
Lesson 2: Stand in the Breach
Quiz 1
1 attempt allowed
Part II: The First Invisible Battlefield (Radio Intelligence)
Exercise 1
Lesson 3: The Human Cost of Staying First
Contrasting Fates Determined by Radio Intelligence (1941-1943)
The Invisible Battlefield Emerges (1903-1905)
Vice Admiral Kamimura Hikonojō (1903)
First Wartime Radio Traffic Analysis (1904)
The Forgotten Best Seller (1909)
A Pattern of Thinking Emerges
Critical New Technology: Radio (1903-1943)
Exercise 2
Second Invisible Battleground Emerges (1949)
Necessity Influences Computing Architecture (1948)
The “Revolutionizers” (1952)
The NOBUS Doctrine Becomes Known (2013-2014)
Exercise 3
The First CRAY-1s: Three Machines That Changed Everything (1976-1977)
Serial 1: Bragging Rights (1976)
Serial 2: Codebreaking for Signals Intelligence (1976)
Serial 3: Instant Profit or Instant Bust (1977)
Exercise 4
Human Cost Induces “Wizard Thinking”
Connecting the Invisible Threads
Summary
Quiz 2
1 attempt allowed
Lesson 4: The Pattern Creators
Territorial Patterns
Spiral Bridge
Swing Bridge
St. Paul Layover Agreement
Chicago Tycoons
Colonel Robert R. McCormick
The Purple Gang
Exercise 5
Evolving Radio Technology
World War I Radio Intelligence
Postwar Radio Evolution
The Omnigraph
Exercise 6
Communication Patterns
Captain Bill McCoy
Rum Row
Interdiction
Radio Bearings
Exercise 7
Financial Patterns
Al Capone
Johnny Torrio
Big Jim Colisimo
Warren Harding
Ralph Capone
Cicero
EJ O’Hare
Across the Mississippi River
Lawndale Kennel Club
Tax Evasion
Undercover Agent
Exercise 8
Summary
Quiz 3
1 attempt allowed
Lesson 5: Decoding the Bootleggers
Elizebeth Friedman
West Coast Unit
William Friedman
Cryptanalytic Unit
Exercise 9
Sinking of I’m Alone
The Friedman Trove
Exercise 10
Summary
Quiz 4
1 attempt allowed
Lesson 6: Decoding the Naval Disarmament Conference
Vice Admiral Kamimura Hikonojō
Russian Pacific Fleet Depredations
First Wartime Radio Traffic Analysis
Fourteen Points to Port and Annihilate
Exercise 11
Arms Race
Age of Sail
Pre-Dreadnaught Battleships
Two-Ocean Navy
Exercise 12
Washington Naval Conference
Teapot Dome
Strategic Imperative
Exercise 13
Summary
Quiz 5
1 attempt allowed
Lesson 7: Flying Against the Imperial Japanese Navy
United States Naval Academy
Year-End Traditions
Naval Air Station Pensacola
Exercise 14
Assassination
Carrier Qualification
Rabaul
Exercise 15
Medal of Honor
Final Flight
Great Friends
Exercise 16
Summary
Quiz 6
1 attempt allowed
Lesson 8: Was Location “AF” Midway, or the Aleutian Islands?
Planned Attack on “AF”
Red
Blue
Exercise 17
December 4, 1941
December 8, 1941
Chester Nimitz
Exercise 18
March 9, 1942
Midway Plans
Rochefort’s Big Break
Exercise 19
Chicago Tribune
Presidential Authorization
Disastrous Mental Models
Summary
Quiz 7
1 attempt allowed
Lesson 9: Hedy Lamarr, the Mother of WiFi
Spread Spectrum
Exercise 20
The Most Beautiful Woman in the World
Barbara La Marr
Hollywood
Exercise 21
Fritz Mandl
Waves
Exercise 22
Player Piano
Exercise 23
Summary
Quiz 8
1 attempt allowed
Part III: The Wizard’s Approach to Pattern Recognition
Full-Power Takeoff
Exercise 24
Lesson 10: Profile of the “Real Programmer”
A Debugging Skill
Coding Challenges
Fizz Buzz
Recursion
Whiteboard Interview
Exercise 25
Insecurities
Exercise 26
Profile Describing a Real Programmer
Exercise 27
Track and Field
Fizz Buzz Practice
Exercise 28
Summary
Quiz 9
1 attempt allowed
Lesson 11: Think Like a Computer
Primary
Popular Electronics
Exercise 29
Turing Tumble
Crypto
Exercise 30
Flow
Journey Versus Destination
Exercise 31
Summary
Quiz 10
1 attempt allowed
Lesson 12: The Basics With a Side of Crypto
Prepare For Engine Run-Up
Crypto Problem
What We Will Learn
The Library
Numbering Systems
Logical Operations
Exercise 32
Ones’ Complement Arithmetic
Complementary Complements
Exercise 33
The Calculation
Learning
Exercise 34
Summary
Quiz 11
1 attempt allowed
Lesson 13: Design an Algorithm in Your Head
Donald Knuth
Conversion
Algorithm
Exercise 35
Decimal to Hexadecimal
Hexadecimal to Decimal
Base 62
Exercise 36
Summary
Quiz 12
1 attempt allowed
Lesson 14: What Can the NSA Teach Us About Debugging?
Digital Computers
Exercise 37
Intuition
Exercise 38
Superpowers
Summary
Quiz 13
1 attempt allowed
Lesson 15: Problem in a Box
Once More
Loud Whiteboards
Exercise 39
Fitting the Problem Into a Box
Task Main Loop
Exercise 40
Summary
Quiz 14
1 attempt allowed
Lesson 16: Vacuum Tube Blackjack
What This Deep Dive Teaches
Early Computing
Aberdeen Proving Ground
Exercise 41
Epic Folklore
Exercise 42
LGP-30 Programming
Exercise 43
Summary
Quiz 15
1 attempt allowed
Lesson 17: Running the Numbers
Porting Blackjack
Running the Numbers
Exercise 44
User Guide
ROAR
Exercise 45
Infinite Loop
Problem Analysis
Problem in a Box
Exercise 46
Reflecting
Beyond Blackjack
Computing History Archives
Warming Up the LGP-30
When It Fits
Exercise 47
Summary
Quiz 16
1 attempt allowed
Lesson 18: Transcendent Patterns
Three-Step Process
Modern Frame of Reference
Research Steps
Interpretation
Dig More Deeply
The Patent Examiner
Exercise 48
Transcendent Patterns
Invariant
Design an Algorithm
Exercise 49
Integrating the Skill
Practicing the Insight
Design Pattern: Struts and Braces
World War II Biplane
World War I Biplane
Design Pattern: Cantilever
Swing Bridge
Transcendent Insight
Exercise 50
Cross-Cultural Insights
Summary
Quiz 17
1 attempt allowed
Part IV: The Second Invisible Battlefield (Nuclear Deterrence)
Constraint Transformation
Systems View
Powerful Insight
Exercise 51
Breakthrough Insight
Point of Leverage
The New Barrier
The “Defensive Disclosure” Concept
The Concern
Examination
Exercise 52
Revised Mental Model
Quiz 18
1 attempt allowed
Lesson 19: The Kiev Computer
A Note on Source Material
Finding the Right Viewpoint
Lack of Tools
Computers Versus Computing Systems
Systems of Equations
Later-Generation Systems
Constraint as Innovation
Exercise 53
The Kiev Computer
Ukrainian Line of Soviet Computing
Disambiguation
Modular Component Design
Three-Address Instructions
Automatic Address Modification
Memory Hierarchy
Computer Programming
Exercise 54
Comparing to CDC 6600 (1964)
No Recursion
The Power in Spotting Patterns
Exercise 55
Floating Point and Simulation
Cost Per FLOP
Blocks
Exercise 56
Polish Notation
Bonus Feature
Curricula
Institute in Physics and Computers
Mastery at a Young Age
Why My 1970 Experience Matters Here
Rounding Errors
Multi-Pass Punched-Card Compilers
Bit Precision Loss Calculation
Verbal Transmission
Connection to Modern AI
Erf! Erf!
Exercise 57
First Principles
Additional Reading
Summary
Quiz 19
1 attempt allowed
Lesson 20: Project Whirlwind
U.S.S. Lexington
Flight Instructor
Fire Control
Exercise 58
Wind Tunnel Simulation
War Ends
Exercise 59
The Whirlwind Computer
The Memory Test Computer
IBM Defense Calculator
Exercise 60
Summary
Quiz 20
1 attempt allowed
Lesson 21: Semi-Automatic Ground Environment
The Forgotten Best Seller
Bug Collectors
Reverse Engineering
Around the World Nonstop
Exercise 61
George Valley
Whirlwind
Whirlwind II and IBM 701
Production Model
Exercise 62
Lorenz Center
Margaret Hamilton
Send Man to the Moon
Exercise 63
Summary
Quiz 21
1 attempt allowed
Lesson 22: Engineering Research Associates
See Saw
Index of Coincidence
Analysis of A Single Text
Message Comparison
Exercise 64
Near War’s End
Sole Source Contract
Exercise 65
National Security Agency
Purpose of Analytical Machines
Summary
Quiz 22
1 attempt allowed
Lesson 23: Control Data Corporation
Twelve Defectors
Little Character
Office Desk
Exercise 66
CDC 6600
Supercomputing
Exercise 67
Chippewa Falls
Summary
Quiz 23
1 attempt allowed
Lesson 24: Cray Research
John Rollwagen
George Hanson
Exercise 68
Serial Two
Exercise 69
Cray Design
The Cray Style
Exercise 70
Summary
Quiz 24
1 attempt allowed
Lesson 25: My First CRAY-1
Nobody but Us
The Trade Secret
The Cray Way
CRAY-1 Arrives
Exercise 71
Bare Metal
Memory Banks
Exercise 72
Summary
Quiz 25
1 attempt allowed
Lesson 26: Big Iron
Fast Forward
Scalar Logical
Scalar Shift
Special Register Values
Exercise 73
Listing One
Instruction Buffer
Exercise 74
Line Three
Scalar Merge
Listing Three
Functional Unit Segmentation
Exercise 75
Mentoring and Credibility
Summary
Quiz 26
1 attempt allowed
Part V: Legacy of the Invisible Battlefield
Wyoming Blizzard
San Remo Agreement
Exercise 76
Lesson 27: Software Development
Vectorizing Software
Exercise 77
Seymour’s Memo
On-Line Tape Software
Summary
Quiz 27
1 attempt allowed
Lesson 28: My NSA Mug Shot
But Where…?
Safe Arrival
Round Tapes
Channel Extender
Horseshoes
Exercise 78
Patterns in the Noise
Channel Commands
Exercise 79
Spotting Weirdness
Deliberate Practice
Developing Expertise
Summary
Quiz 28
1 attempt allowed
Lesson 29: It Was Nothing, They Said
Dash Pig
Leap Day
Exercise 80
Y2K Bug
Perspective
The Wizards
Exercise 81
Magnetic Tape
Exercise 82
Deadline
Modern Legacy Code
Exercise 83
Summary
Quiz 29
1 attempt allowed
Lesson 30: Ducky Day
The Cray Style
Exercise 84
Octal
Exercise 85
Storytelling
Summary
Quiz 30
1 attempt allowed
Lesson 31: The Transitive Property of Keeping Your Mouth Shut
Minnesota
Valley Girls
Transitive Property
9-Track
Exercise 86
One More Play
My Turn to Teach
Equality
Exercise 87
Summary
Quiz 31
1 attempt allowed
Lesson 32: The Veil
Initial Visit
Saudi Hospitality
Feast
Exercise 88
Summary
Quiz 32
1 attempt allowed
Lesson 33: Oil Across the Water
Revisionist History
Grapevine
Exercise 89
Standard Oil
Exercise 90
The Relationship
Video and References
Summary
Quiz 33
1 attempt allowed
Lesson 34: Desert Shield
Eastern Province
Notary Public
Summary
Exercise 91
Part VI: The Invisible Battlefield Develops Mastery
Lesson 35: Remembering “Scuzzy”
Pre-Release IBM Hardware
Exercise 92
Software Division
Exercise 93
Summary
Quiz 34
1 attempt allowed
Lesson 36: Gate Keeping
Burnout
Gate Keeping
Exercise 94
The Unix Guru
Exercise 95
On the Shoulders of Giants
Dragon Wrangling
Summary
Quiz 35
1 attempt allowed
Lesson 37: Imposter Syndrome
Imposter Syndrome
Different Way of Thinking
Software Training
Paying it Forward
Wizard Thinking
The Dark Side
Shoulders of Giants
Exercise 96
The Gatekeeper
Prohibition-Era John Scarne
Exercise 97
Resources
What Do You Hear?
Quiz 36
1 attempt allowed
Lesson 38: The Road Less Traveled
Cross-Domain Thinking
Exercise 98
Constraint Transformation
Whirlwind
SAGE
ERA
CDC
Cray Research
CRAY-1 Programming
Exercise 99
The Path Taken
Exercise 100
The “Revolutionizer” Patterns
Key “Revolutionizer” Cognitive Patterns Worth Preserving
The Soylent Green Pattern
Quiz 37
1 attempt allowed
Lesson 39: The Wizard’s Mirror
Extracting Patterns from History
Exercise 101
The Cyclic Nature of Mastery
The Catalyst of Encouragement
The Paradox of Knowledge Sharing
The Value of Counter-Intuitive Paths
The Opportunity in Preparation
The Power of Curiosity
The Leverage of Cross-Domain Skills
The Depth Principle
Exercise 102
Recursive Lesson Application
Standing on the Shoulders of Giants
What Do You Hear?
Exercise 103
The Cyclic Journey
Quiz 38
1 attempt allowed
Part VII: Teaching Rocket Science
Lesson 40: The Search for Scientists
Science as Plunder
Space Medicine
Man on the Moon
Forced Labor
IG Farben Company
IG Farben Auschwitz
Exercise 104
The Osenberg List
Quiz 39
1 attempt allowed
Lesson 41: Lady of the Lake Discovers Bomb Test
Lavrentiy Beria
Not the Real Story
Mysterious History
Exercise 105
Motivation Behind Operation Paperclip
Exercise 106
Additional Reading
Quiz 40
1 attempt allowed
Lesson 42: Camelot, the German Rocket Scientists at Peenemünde
NASA Marshall
Rocket Test Stand
Exercise 107
Resort on Rügen
Operation Hydra
Mittelwerk
Exercise 108
Castle Varlar
Battle of the Bulge
Quiz 41
1 attempt allowed
Lesson 43: Mittelwerk Extermination
Treaty of Versailles
Heinrich Himmler
Operation Barbarossa
Exercise 109
SS Takeover of Peenemünde
Hans Kammler
Exercise 110
Staff Arrival
Evacuation
Redstone
Quiz 42
1 attempt allowed
Lesson 44: Sputnik Satellite Becomes Defense Priority
National Defense Education Act
Reverse Digits
Dig More Deeply
Develop the Skill
#s: Pattern Recognition Training
Progressive Recognition
Converging Threads
“Wizard Thinking” as a Concept
The Value
#s: Cognitive Apprenticeship
#s: Mental Model Construction
#s: Mental Models in Organizational Context
#s: Mastery Transmission
Quiz 43
1 attempt allowed
Lesson 45: Show and Tell
Part VIII: Road Map
Lesson 46: Appendix A. HPC Tradecraft Road Map
The 1995 Barrier
Two Series
Book 1. The AI Coverup: Are We Really Hallucinating?
Book 2. Nobody but Us: A History of Cray Research’s Software and the Building of the World’s Fastest Supercomputer
Book 3. The Wizard’s Lens: Learn to Think Like AI
Book 4. Ethics in High-Stakes Environments: Personal Survival Within a Power Imbalance
Book 5. Unexpected Histories: Spotting Patterns and Making Connections That Others Miss
Book 6. Constraint-Based Design: An Unexpected Gateway to Understanding Modern LLM Architecture
UPDATE
APML
Adventurer Experience
Constraint-Based Design
Nobody but Us: A History of Cray Research's Software and the Building of the World's Fastest Supercomputer (The Course)
HPC Tradecraft Apprenticeship, Volume 2
A Cray Research veteran narrates how pioneers handled overwhelming complexity: pattern recognition anticipating Midway, systems thinking inventing magnetic core memory. Experience from one domain, applied in a new way, shaped supercomputing.
Minimum price
$359.95
$439.95
You pay
Author earns
About
About the Course
When second place meant people died, the answer was Cray Research.
When laboratories competed for the few scientists with Top Secret clearances, the best "bragging rights" brought in the best scientists. The ultimate bragging right was Seymour Cray's first and only CRAY-1 supercomputer. Each lab shot down the other's funding. In a boss move, Cray gave away the computer. The second customer walked in and paid cash. Accomplishing the apparently-impossible became the Cray Research mystique.
Supercomputing Comes From Codebreaking
Early radio technology created an invisible battlefield where codebreaking meant lives saved. Military cryptanalysis became the direct path to supercomputing. With lives at stake, existential pressure created cognitive frameworks that made the impossible routine.
How We Dealt With Overwhelming Complexity
A Cray Research veteran narrates how pioneers handled overwhelming complexity: pattern recognition anticipating Midway, systems thinking inventing magnetic core memory. Experience from one domain, applied in a new way, shaped supercomputing.
Through historical narrative and technical examples (debugging unreproducible problems, optimizing tightly-constrained hardware, bare-metal skills becoming lost to time), you can develop the same abilities. The author treats mastery not as a linear path, but as cycles building on previous cycles of mastery.
Today's Overwhelming Complexity
The Cold War stakes are gone but overwhelming complexity intensifies. The generation that developed these frameworks and devices is retiring and passing away. This knowledge has never been systematically transmitted to the next generation until now.
The path to Cray Research-level wizardry exists. It has been traveled. You can travel it today.
Instructor
About the Instructor
No Time to Be Beginners
What was it like to stand in the breach, with nobody else to take the decisions, and do-overs are too late? Margaret Hamilton, the first programmer hired for the Apollo project at MIT, explained:
Because software was a mystery, a black box, upper management gave us total freedom and trust. We had to find a way and we did. Looking back, we were the luckiest people in the world; there was no choice but to be pioneers; no time to be beginners.
During the Cold War when it was "nobody but us," our decisions and solutions were shaped by constraints. At Cray Research constraints and barriers pointed us to the best point of leverage. To remain the best in the world, we had no other option. But before considering leverage, we carefully identified and proved relevant capabilities. Those capabilities showed us what solutions might be plausible. We also found that if it wasn't fun, it probably was not worth doing.
This forced way of working, where responsibility could not be abstracted away, has been mostly lost to time.
My Role as Custodian of Lost Skills
I am bringing you those skills because they were never passed to the next generation. I created a primary source document showing what it was like: Nobody but Us: A History of Cray Research's Software and the Building of the World's Fastest Supercomputer. But I wrote a second primary source, reproducing the Cray Research skills for you right now, in 2026. The Wizard's Lens: Learn to Think Like AI is an apprenticeship drawing you in to experience, not merely read about, how we continuously "achieved the impossible" at Cray Research.
Those Cray Research skills did not begin with software, or even hardware. They began outdoors. Experiential education, with real risks and real consequences, has also been abstracted away. That is where judgement is formed. For this I wrote Surviving Spring Break on the Mountain: The Power of Experiential Education.
Pure Entertainment
If it isn't fun, it probably isn't worth doing. I continued practicing the most important debugging skill I know: spotting patterns and connections that others miss. I wrote Unexpected Histories to show you shifted perspectives, purely for entertainment, but showing real history that matters today. In each case, once you see it, you cannot "un-see" it.
Эдвард Барнард
Когда нет времени быть новичком
Каково это — стоять на переднем крае, когда больше некому принимать решения и на повторные попытки уже нет времени? Маргарет Хэмилтон, первый программист, нанятый для проекта Apollo в MIT, объясняла это так:
Поскольку программное обеспечение было загадкой, «чёрным ящиком», высшее руководство предоставило нам полную свободу и доверие. Мы должны были найти выход — и мы его нашли. Оглядываясь назад, можно сказать, что мы были самыми везучими людьми в мире: у нас не было выбора, кроме как быть первопроходцами; не было времени на ученичество.
Во времена холодной войны, когда всё сводилось к принципу «никто, кроме нас», наши решения и подходы формировались под давлением жёстких ограничений. В Cray Research именно ограничения и барьеры указывали нам на наиболее эффективную точку приложения усилий. У нас просто не было иного пути, кроме как стать лучшими в мире. Но прежде чем прилагать усилия, мы тщательно искали и проверяли соответствующие компетенции. Именно они показывали, какие решения вообще могут быть осуществимы. Мы также поняли: если дело не приносит удовольствия — вероятно, не стоит им заниматься.
Этот вынужденный стиль работы, при котором ответственность нельзя переложить на других, почти утрачен со временем.
Моя роль как хранителя утраченных навыков
Я передаю вам эти навыки, потому что они так и не были переданы следующему поколению. Я написал книгу воспоминаний о том, как это было на самом деле: Nobody but Us: A History of Cray Research's Software and the Building of the World's Fastest Supercomputer. («Только мы: история программного обеспечения Cray Research и создания самого быстрого суперкомпьютера в мире»). Но я написал и вторую книгу, возрождающую стиль мышления Cray Research для вас прямо сейчас, в 2026 году. The Wizard's Lens: Learn to Think Like AI («Линза волшебника: научитесь думать как ИИ») — это учебник, который погружает вас в атмосферу и дает опыт, а не просто рассказывает о том, как мы постоянно «достигали невозможного» в Cray Research.
Истоки подхода Cray Research лежат не в программном обеспечении и даже не в железе, а в холодной реальности жизни. Обучение через опыт, с реальными рисками и реальными последствиями, подвергнутое переосмыслению. Именно так формируется суждение. Об этом я написал книгу Surviving Spring Break on the Mountain: The Power of Experiential Education («Выжить на весенних каникулах в горах: сила обучения через опыт»).
Чистое развлечение
Если это не приносит удовольствия — вероятно, этим не стоит заниматься. Я продолжал практиковать самый важный навык профессионального отладчика, который знаю: замечать закономерности и связи, которые другие упускают. Я написал Unexpected Histories («Неожиданные истории»), чтобы показать вам смещенные перспективы — исключительно ради развлечения, но опираясь на реальную историю, которая имеет значение и сегодня. В любом случае, увидев это однажды, вы уже не сможете «развидеть» увиденное.
Episode 317
An Interview with Edward W. Barnard
Material
Course Material
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