Cray-2 Supercomputer Comparisons

[berkeman]

I "liked" a post on Facebook earlier today that compared the computing power of a Cray-2 supercomputer from the 1980s to a current full-featured desktop graphics computer. The current computer was amazingly stronger compared to the Cray-2 computer system.

I was fortunate enough to see a Cray-2 system at the national weather lab in Boulder Colorado in the early 1980s when I was working in Denver, and it was amazing. The cooling system was very impressive, and I liked the playful additions like the seat cushions around the cylindrical main computing unit (not shown in the image below of a Cray-2 system that I found online, unfortunately).

Because of that "like", I got this follow-up post in my FB feed:

https://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/supercomputers/10/68

 

[Roberto Pavani]

I cannot find a picture, but only the project:
https://github.com/DarkwaveTechnologies/Cray-2-Reboot

Cray2 clone perfectly working on your desk in minuature using FPGA.

 

[Baluncore]

46 years of Moore's law can make a difference. 2²¹ = 2.1 million.

There is another difference between a Cray-2 and the iPhone 14. The Cray-2 ran serious programs, while iPhones help waste the population's time on cat videos, and wrecking motor vehicles while texting.

 

[AlexB23]

Moore's Law. I was talking about this back in 2018 with my friends, and said that a modern GPU (ignoring precision) could outperform the fastest supercomputer in the early 2000s. Even spent the time to look up FLOP/s values for GPUs and other computers and made a chart of it.

Even a cheap Android from the mid-2010s had almost the same performance as the Cray-2. The flagship phones of the end of the 2010s were as fast as mid-1990s supercomputers

 

[gmax137]

A few questions in no particular order.

So it makes me wonder: the guys that were buying Cray computers in the 1980's (let's just say the NSA), what are they buying and using today?

Another question I have is about the input/output metrics. Not a computer guy so I don't know the terminology. Unless everybody's address, phone number, license plate number, facial characteristics, etc. is in RAM, there has to be a "go lookup" time between when 007 asks "whose car" and the machine answers. How do the contemporary machines compare to the OG mainframes?

The spell check on my smartphone is just so dumb that I have a hard time comparing its power to a Cray.