Nobody but Us: A History of Cray Research's Software and the Building of the World's Fastest Supercomputer

Nobody but Us: A History of Cray Research's Software and the Building of the World's Fastest Supercomputer

Edward W. Barnard
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Table of Contents

Introduction›

  • Introduction

The First Invisible Battlefield (Radio Intelligence)›

  • The Human Cost of Staying First
    • Contrasting Fates Determined by Radio Intelligence (1941-1943)
    • The Invisible Battlefield Emerges (1903-1905)
    • Second Invisible Battleground Emerges (1949)
    • Human Cost Induces “Wizard Thinking”
    • Connecting the Invisible Threads
    • Summary
  • The Pattern Creators
    • Territorial Patterns
    • Evolving Radio Technology
    • Communication Patterns
    • Financial Patterns
    • Summary
  • Decoding the Bootleggers
    • Elizebeth Friedman
    • West Coast Unit
    • William Friedman
    • Cryptanalytic Unit
    • Sinking of I’m Alone
    • The Friedman Trove
    • Summary
  • Decoding the Naval Disarmament Conference
    • Vice Admiral Kamimura Hikonojō
    • Russian Pacific Fleet Depredations
    • First Wartime Radio Traffic Analysis
    • Fourteen Points to Port and Annihilate
    • Arms Race
    • Age of Sail
    • Pre-Dreadnaught Battleships
    • Two-Ocean Navy
    • Washington Naval Conference
    • Teapot Dome
    • Strategic Imperative
    • Summary
  • Flying Against the Imperial Japanese Navy
    • United States Naval Academy
    • Year-End Traditions
    • Naval Air Station Pensacola
    • Assassination
    • Carrier Qualification
    • Rabaul
    • Medal of Honor
    • Final Flight
    • Great Friends
    • Summary
  • Was Location “AF” Midway, or the Aleutian Islands?
    • Planned Attack on “AF”
    • Red
    • Blue
    • December 4, 1941
    • December 8, 1941
    • Chester Nimitz
    • March 9, 1942
    • Rochefort’s Big Break
    • Chicago Tribune
    • Presidential Authorization
    • Disastrous Mental Models
    • Summary
  • Hedy Lamarr, the Mother of WiFi
    • Spread Spectrum
    • The Most Beautiful Woman in the World
    • Barbara La Marr
    • Hollywood
    • Fritz Mandl
    • Waves
    • Player Piano
    • Summary

The Wizard’s Approach to Pattern Recognition›

  • Profile of the “Real Programmer”
    • A Debugging Skill
    • Coding Challenges
    • Fizz Buzz
    • Recursion
    • Whiteboard Interview
    • Insecurities
    • Profile Describing a Real Programmer
    • Track and Field
    • Fizz Buzz Practice
    • Summary
  • Think Like a Computer
    • Primary
    • Popular Electronics
    • Turing Tumble
    • Crypto
    • Flow
    • Journey Versus Destination
    • Summary
  • The Basics With a Side of Crypto
    • Prepare For Engine Run-Up
    • Crypto Problem
    • What We Will Learn
    • The Library
    • Numbering Systems
    • Logical Operations
    • Ones’ Complement Arithmetic
    • Complementary Complements
    • The Calculation
    • Learning
    • Summary
  • Design an Algorithm in Your Head
    • Donald Knuth
    • Conversion
    • Algorithm
    • Decimal to Hexadecimal
    • Hexadecimal to Decimal
    • Base 62
    • Summary
  • What Can the NSA Teach Us About Debugging?
    • Digital Computers
    • Intuition
    • Superpowers
    • Summary
  • Problem in a Box
    • Once More
    • Loud Whiteboards
    • Fitting the Problem Into a Box
    • Task Main Loop
    • Summary
  • Vacuum Tube Blackjack
    • What This Deep Dive Teaches
    • Early Computing
    • Aberdeen Proving Ground
    • Epic Folklore
    • LGP-30 Programming
    • Summary
  • Running the Numbers
    • Porting Blackjack
    • User Guide
    • ROAR
    • Infinite Loop
    • Problem Analysis
    • Problem in a Box
    • Reflecting
    • Beyond Blackjack
    • Computing History Archives
    • Warming Up the LGP-30
    • When It Fits
    • Summary
  • Transcendent Patterns
    • Three-Step Process
    • Modern Frame of Reference
    • Transcendent Patterns
    • Integrating the Skill
    • Practicing the Insight
    • Cross-Cultural Insights
    • Summary

The Second Invisible Battlefield (Nuclear Deterrence)›

  • The Kiev Computer
    • A Note on Source Material
    • Finding the Right Viewpoint
    • The Kiev Computer
    • Comparing to CDC 6600 (1964)
    • Floating Point and Simulation
    • Cost Per FLOP
    • Blocks
    • Polish Notation
    • Institute in Physics and Computers
    • First Principles
    • Additional Reading
    • Summary
  • Project Whirlwind
    • U.S.S. Lexington
    • Flight Instructor
    • Fire Control
    • Wind Tunnel Simulation
    • War Ends
    • The Whirlwind Computer
    • Summary
  • Semi-Automatic Ground Environment
    • The Forgotten Best Seller
    • Bug Collectors
    • Around the World Nonstop
    • George Valley
    • Whirlwind
    • Whirlwind II and IBM 701
    • Production Model
    • Lorenz Center
    • Margaret Hamilton
    • Send Man to the Moon
    • Summary
  • Engineering Research Associates
    • See Saw
    • Index of Coincidence
    • Analysis of A Single Text
    • Message Comparison
    • Near War’s End
    • Sole Source Contract
    • National Security Agency
    • Purpose of Analytical Machines
    • Summary
  • Control Data Corporation
    • Twelve Defectors
    • Little Character
    • Office Desk
    • CDC 6600
    • Supercomputing
    • Chippewa Falls
    • Summary
  • Cray Research
    • John Rollwagen
    • George Hanson
    • Serial Two
    • Cray Design
    • The Cray Style
    • Summary
  • My First CRAY-1
    • Nobody but Us
    • The Trade Secret
    • The Cray Way
    • CRAY-1 Arrives
    • Bare Metal
    • Memory Banks
    • Summary
  • Big Iron
    • Fast Forward
    • Scalar Logical
    • Scalar Shift
    • Special Register Values
    • Listing One
    • Instruction Buffer
    • Line Three
    • Scalar Merge
    • Listing Three
    • Functional Unit Segmentation
    • Mentoring and Credibility
    • Summary

Legacy of the Invisible Battlefield›

  • Software Development
    • Vectorizing Software
    • Seymour’s Memo
    • On-Line Tape Software
    • Summary
  • My NSA Mug Shot
    • But Where…?
    • Safe Arrival
    • Round Tapes
    • Channel Extender
    • Horseshoes
    • Patterns in the Noise
    • Channel Commands
    • Spotting Weirdness
    • Deliberate Practice
    • Developing Expertise
    • Summary
  • It Was Nothing, They Said
    • Dash Pig
    • Leap Day
    • Y2K Bug
    • Perspective
    • The Wizards
    • Magnetic Tape
    • Deadline
    • Modern Legacy Code
    • Summary
  • Ducky Day
    • The Cray Style
    • Octal
    • Storytelling
    • Summary
  • The Transitive Property of Keeping Your Mouth Shut
    • Minnesota
    • Valley Girls
    • Transitive Property
    • 9-Track
    • One More Play
    • My Turn to Teach
    • Equality
    • Summary
  • The Veil
    • Initial Visit
    • Saudi Hospitality
    • Feast
    • Summary
  • Oil Across the Water
    • Revisionist History
    • Grapevine
    • Standard Oil
    • The Relationship
    • Video and References
    • Summary
  • Desert Shield
    • Eastern Province
    • Notary Public
    • Summary

The Invisible Battlefield Develops Mastery›

  • Remembering “Scuzzy”
    • Pre-Release IBM Hardware
    • Software Division
    • Summary
  • Gate Keeping
    • Burnout
    • Gate Keeping
    • The Unix Guru
    • On the Shoulders of Giants
    • Dragon Wrangling
    • Summary
  • Imposter Syndrome
    • Imposter Syndrome
    • Different Way of Thinking
    • Software Training
    • Paying it Forward
    • Wizard Thinking
    • The Dark Side
    • Shoulders of Giants
    • The Gatekeeper
    • Prohibition-Era John Scarne
    • Resources
    • What Do You Hear?
  • The Road Less Traveled
    • Cross-Domain Thinking
    • Constraint Transformation
    • The Path Taken
    • The “Revolutionizer” Patterns
  • The Wizard’s Mirror
    • Extracting Patterns from History
    • The Cyclic Nature of Mastery
    • Recursive Lesson Application
    • Standing on the Shoulders of Giants
    • What Do You Hear?
    • The Cyclic Journey

Teaching Rocket Science›

  • The Search for Scientists
    • Science as Plunder
    • Forced Labor
    • IG Farben Company
    • IG Farben Auschwitz
    • The Osenberg List
  • Lady of the Lake Discovers Bomb Test
    • Lavrentiy Beria
    • Not the Real Story
    • Mysterious History
    • Motivation Behind Operation Paperclip
    • Additional Reading
  • Camelot, the German Rocket Scientists at Peenemünde
    • NASA Marshall
    • Rocket Test Stand
    • Resort on Rügen
    • Operation Hydra
    • Mittelwerk
    • Castle Varlar
    • Battle of the Bulge
  • Mittelwerk Extermination
    • Treaty of Versailles
    • Heinrich Himmler
    • Operation Barbarossa
    • SS Takeover of Peenemünde
    • Hans Kammler
    • Staff Arrival
    • Evacuation
    • Redstone
  • Sputnik Satellite Becomes Defense Priority
    • Part I: Pattern Recognition Training
    • Part II: Cognitive Apprenticeship
    • Part III: Mental Model Construction
    • Part IV: Mental Models in Organizational Context
    • Part V: Mastery Transmission

Sample Chapter›

  • Sample Chapter: Becoming the Revolutionizer
    • Try This Right Now
    • What Just Happened
    • The Promise: What You Will Become
    • Barriers as Opportunities
    • How to Read This Book
    • The Wizard’s Lens
    • What Comes Next
Nobody but Us: A History of Cray Research's Software and the Building of the World's Fastest Supercomputer/The Wizard’s Approach to Pattern Recognition

The Wizard’s Approach to Pattern Recognition

https://leanpub.com/nobody-but-us

Full-Power Takeoff

https://leanpub.com/nobody-but-us

Up next

Profile of the “Real Programmer”

In this part

  • Profile of the “Real Programmer”
  • A Debugging Skill
  • Coding Challenges
  • Fizz Buzz
  • Recursion
  • Whiteboard Interview
  • Insecurities
  • Profile Describing a Real Programmer
  • Track and Field
  • Fizz Buzz Practice
  • Summary
  • Think Like a Computer
  • Primary
  • Popular Electronics
  • Turing Tumble
  • Crypto
  • Flow
  • Journey Versus Destination
  • Summary
  • The Basics With a Side of Crypto
  • Prepare For Engine Run-Up
  • Crypto Problem
  • What We Will Learn
  • The Library
  • Numbering Systems
  • Logical Operations
  • Ones’ Complement Arithmetic
  • Complementary Complements
  • The Calculation
  • Learning
  • Summary
  • Design an Algorithm in Your Head
  • Donald Knuth
  • Conversion
  • Algorithm
  • Decimal to Hexadecimal
  • Hexadecimal to Decimal
  • Base 62
  • Summary
  • What Can the NSA Teach Us About Debugging?
  • Digital Computers
  • Intuition
  • Superpowers
  • Summary
  • Problem in a Box
  • Once More
  • Loud Whiteboards
  • Fitting the Problem Into a Box
  • Task Main Loop
  • Summary
  • Vacuum Tube Blackjack
  • What This Deep Dive Teaches
  • Early Computing
  • Aberdeen Proving Ground
  • Epic Folklore
  • LGP-30 Programming
  • Summary
  • Running the Numbers
  • Porting Blackjack
  • User Guide
  • ROAR
  • Infinite Loop
  • Problem Analysis
  • Problem in a Box
  • Reflecting
  • Beyond Blackjack
  • Computing History Archives
  • Warming Up the LGP-30
  • When It Fits
  • Summary
  • Transcendent Patterns
  • Three-Step Process
  • Modern Frame of Reference
  • Transcendent Patterns
  • Integrating the Skill
  • Practicing the Insight
  • Cross-Cultural Insights
  • Summary