From: thresher!thad@netcom.com (Thaddeus J. Beier)
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 95 21:30:29 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Cray Computer liquidating...
Message-ID: <199507180423.VAA01942@thresher>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain




Phil Fraerling asks if there is any crypto relevance to CCC liquidating.
There definately is some.  They were in the middle of building a Cray 3
with .25 Million PIM processors for the NSA.  It was a wild machine,
basically it used the Cray to pass data back and forth very quickly
among the 1 bit processors.  Someone who worked on it said that it
reminded him of Wayner's hypothetical DES cracking machine.

It was never very close to being finished.  It will be interesting to
see if somebody tries to finish it, or if they use some other
platform to use the PIM (processor-in-memory) chips.  I'd love
to see who bids for the half-finished machine at the coming
liquidation...

thad
-- Thaddeus Beier                   email:  thresher!thad@netcom.com
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