The CDC 6600 is the flagship of the discontinued 6000 series of mainframe computer systems manufactured by Control Data Corporation. Generally considered to be the first successful supercomputer, it o
The CDC 6600. Behind the system console are two of the "arms" of the plus-sign shaped cabinet with the covers opened. Individual modules can be seen inside. The racks holding the modules are hinged to give access to the racks behind them. Each arm of the machine had up to four such racks. On the right is the cooling system.
A CDC 6600 system console. This design was a major innovation, in that the screens and keyboard replaced hundreds of switches and blinking lights common in contemporary system consoles. The displays were driven through software, primarily to provide text display in a choice of three sizes. It also provided a way to draw simple graphics. Unlike more modern displays, the console was a vector drawing system, rather than a raster system. The consoles had a single
A CDC 6600 cordwood logic module containing 64 silicon transistors. The coaxial connectors are test points. The module is cooled conductively via the front panel. The 6600 model contained nearly 6,000 such modules.
The CDC 7600 was designed by Seymour Cray to be the successor to the CDC 6600, extending Control Data's dominance of the supercomputer field into the 1970s. The 7600 ran at 36.4 MHz and had a 65 Kword
CDC 6600
…of up to three megaFLOPS, the CDC 6600 was the world's fastest computer from 1964 to 1969, when it relinquished that status to its successor, the CDC 7600. The first CDC 6600s were delivered in 1965 to Livermore and Los Alamos. They quickly became a must-have system in high-end scientific and mathematical…
CDC 7600 assembly at LLNL
CDC 7600 serial number 1. This image shows two sides of the C-shaped chassis.