[{"_1":2,"_3":-5,"_4":-5},"loaderData",{"_5":6,"_7":8},"actionData","errors","root",{"_28":-5,"_38":-5,"_39":40,"_41":42,"_43":44,"_45":46,"_47":48,"_49":50,"_51":52,"_53":54},"routes/_store+/_readers+/email_author.$slug/route",{"_9":10,"_11":-5},"book",{"_12":13,"_14":15,"_16":17,"_18":19,"_20":21,"_22":23},"currentUser","id","Z2lkOi8vbGVhbnB1Yi9TdG9yZTo6Qm9va1Byb2R1Y3QvNjg4MzY","title","Living Amongst the Wizards of Cray Research","state","retired","contactAuthorMethod","email","aboutText","

You will be wondering about the rubber duck atop a CRAY-1 being hand assembled in Chippewa Falls. Our passive-aggressive employee dissent became the Ducky Day annual celebration. This book brings you the unusual company culture that kept us in first place when second place did not count. Wizardry came from engineering not magic. We viewed constraints as points of leverage, identifying capabilities before suggesting solutions.

This book is a first‑person historical account of working inside and alongside high‑end computing environments from the late twentieth century.

Through personal anecdotes and technical reminiscence, it documents how software, hardware, and organizations operated in practice, including legacy systems, supercomputing culture, and professional life inside institutions such as Cray Research and related organizations. The focus remains on what existed and how work was experienced at the time.

The material is presented as reflective nonfiction, combining workplace memoir with computing history, rather than as instruction or professional guidance.

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Kick off your book project in 3 hours! Live workshop on Zoom. You’ll leave with a real book project, progress on your first chapter, and a clear plan to keep going. Saturday, May 2, 2026. Learn more…

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