Reflections on science, technology, and computing — leavened by personal experience


Computer architects create something of functional beauty, just as do their cousins who work in the more tangible media of rock and stone. Consider John Cocke and the IBM 801, Ken Batcher and the Goodyear MPP, Tadashi Watanabe and the NEC SX. Similarly, Seymour Cray’s designs balanced many aspects of power engineering, packaging and cooling,…