Building a Lego Supercomputer - The Cray-1 - Part 7

 Finally it was time to put the model on Lego Ideas - you can see it here:

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/4a1111de-55fd-4236-9990-0b4e0cc599d1

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Building a Lego Supercomputer - The Cray-1 - Part 6

Having got the basic Lego design to more accurately reflect the the layout of the Cray-1 it was now possible to focus on colouring up the design and rendering the images

Some of the initial renders are below

 

Building a Lego Supercomputer - The Cray-1 - Part 5

The image below shows an early redesign featuring a new seat height and an "additional" tower between the two existing towers - to create more of the cylindrical outer shape of the Cray-1 towers 

With the revised hinge construction under the seat to place the base of the "middle" tower

It was this basic design would become the basis of the final model for each of the "Cray-1 Lego Units" - the base and now the two towers - that would be used in the Lego Cray-1 Supercomputer - in theory duplicating each of the "Cray-1 Lego Units" should create the the classic cylindrical design.

Building a Lego Supercomputer - The Cray-1 - Part 4

As I read more about the history of the Cray-1 and some of those involved in the design and manufacture of these intricate devices, I'd also started to think more about how to represent the inside of the Cray-1 Supercomputer.  Having some ability to view the insides of the towers also needed to be considered.

However as I spent more time working on these early designs I realised there were a couple of problems.  The first one was the that the seat height wasn't correct for the scale of the towers - this was relatively easy to fix.  The second problem was much more challenging - the shape of the towers in the Cray-1 form, in effect, an unbroken cylinder.  My towers had a large gap between the outer edge of each tower.  In order to solve this problem I would have to return to the drawing board to redesign both the seat and the construction of the the towers.

Building a Lego Super Computer - The Cray-1 - Part 3

 A better understanding of the angles of rotation for each "Cray-1 Lego Unit" (the seat and the tower) led to a better Lego representation of the Cray-1 Supercomputer.

Rendering some of these early designs began to look more like the classic shape of the Cray-1 Supercomputer

Building a Lego Supercomputer - The Cray-1 - Part 2

 If there was one site that inspired me whilst I was thinking about building a Lego model of the Cray-1 Supercomputer it was this one

https://cray-history.net/cray-history-front/fom-home/fom-cray-1/

The detailed diagrams and photos were invaluable when I was looking at how best to represent a Cray-1 in Lego.  Some of the images, from the website show the schematic diagrams for the Cray-1, seen below

These diagrams would prove invaluable when I was trying to work out the best angles for rotating each "Cray-1 Lego Unit" (the tower and seat) - And as this image below shows - it's very easy to get the angle of rotation wrong for each "Cray-1 Lego Unit" and end up creating some kind of Cray-1 auditorium!

Building a Lego Supercomputer - The Cray-1 - Part 1

Having worked in computing and technology for over 30 years, I've noticed that some names come up more often in computing history than others.  One of those names is Cray.  Cray Research Inc was originally founded in 1972 by Seymour Cray, but it was the probably the creation of the Cray1 Supercomputer in 1976 that caused the Cray name to become part of computing history.

I'd been looking at smooth sided cylindrical and conical Lego models for a while now - Smooth sided cylindrical Lego models are quite difficult to get right - The Lego Saturn V model is a great example of when it works well.   And smooth sided conical models I've found even more difficult!  So building a
Cray-1 with it's cylindrical towers and seating seemed like a good fit for a new Lego model build.

Building an initial representation of single "Cray-1 Unit" ie. the seat and tower, was relatively straight-forward

However I quickly realised that the remainder of the model would not be that easy!