Cray-3

The Cray-3 was a vector supercomputer intended to be Cray Research's successor to the Cray-2. The system was to be the first major application of gallium arsenide (GaAs) semiconductors in computing. The project was not considered a success, and the parent company in Minneapolis decided to end work on the Cray-3 in favour of their own design, the Cray C90. The Cray-3 project was spun off to the newly formed Cray Computer Corporation, but only one Cray-3 was delivered, and never paid for. Seymour Cray moved onto the Cray-4 design, but the company went bankrupt before the project was completed.

History

Background

Cray generally set himself the goal of producing new machines with ten times the performance of the previous models. Although the machines did not always meet this goal, this was a useful technique in defining the project and clarifying what sort of process improvements would be needed to meet it. Cray had always attacked the problem of increased speed with three simultaneous advances: more functional units to give the system higher parallelism, tighter packaging to decrease signal delays, and faster components to allow for a higher clock speed. Of the three, Cray was normally least aggressive on the last issue, his designs tended to use only components that were already in widespread use, as opposed to leading-edge designs.

Cray

Cray Inc. is an American supercomputer manufacturer headquartered in Seattle, Washington. It also manufactures systems for data storage and analytics.

Cray manufactures its products in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, where its founder, Seymour Cray, was born and raised. The company also has offices in St. Paul, Minnesota (the site of its original headquarters under Seymour Cray), and numerous other sales, service, engineering, and R&D locations around the world.

Several Cray supercomputer systems are listed in the TOP500, which ranks the most powerful supercomputers in the world. The number of Cray systems on the list varies from year to year.

The company's predecessor, Cray Research, Inc. (CRI), was founded in 1972 by computer designer Seymour Cray. Seymour Cray went on to form the spin-off Cray Computer Corporation (CCC), in 1989, which went bankrupt in 1995, while Cray Research was bought by SGI the next year. Cray Inc. was formed in 2000 when Tera Computer Company purchased the Cray Research Inc. business from SGI and adopted the name of its acquisition.

Bas-Lag

Bas-Lag is the fictional world in which several of China Miéville's novels are set. Bas-Lag is a world where both magic (referred to as "thaumaturgy") and steampunk technology exist, and is home to many intelligent races. It is influenced by the themes and tropes of multiple genres of science fiction, fantasy, and horror.

The Bas-Lag novels

So far there have been three novels set in Bas-Lag. They are:

Additionally, the short story "Jack", featured in the 2005 collection Looking for Jake, is a Bas-Lag story.

Geography

Bas-Lag possesses a number of continents. Two landmasses, Rohagi and Bered Kai Nev, are named in the three novels, though numerous other landmasses and unique structures play important roles in the novels.

Rohagi

The exact proportions and geography of Rohagi are unknown. New Crobuzon lies about ten miles (16 km) inland from its eastern coast, which borders the Swollen Ocean. Immediately south of New Crobuzon is the Rudewood, beyond which lies the Mendican Hills. North of New Crobuzon, along the coast but separated by the Bezhek Mountains, are the ruins of Suroch. To the west, about a thousand miles from New Crobuzon and far beyond the Dancing Shoe Mountains, lies the four-hundred mile wide freshwater lake called Cold Claw Loch. The Loch connects with the vast, inland Cold Claw Sea, eight hundred miles to the north, via a natural channel called Cold Claw Sound. The Cold Claw Sea is talon-shaped, stretching eastward a great distance, almost connecting with the Swollen Ocean before curving southward for about two hundred miles, finally ending about seven hundred miles north of New Crobuzon. This southward curve is the Gengris, and is populated by the dangerous and unpredictable grindylow.

Cray (disambiguation)

Cray is a supercomputer manufacturer based in Seattle, Washington.

Cray may also refer to:

Places

Fiction

People

Sports

See also