Search a title or topic

Over 20 million podcasts, powered by 

Player FM logo
Artwork

Content provided by Chaos Lever, Ned Bellavance, and Chris Hayner. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Chaos Lever, Ned Bellavance, and Chris Hayner or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://podcastplayer.com/legal.
Player FM - Podcast App
Go offline with the Player FM app!

From Cray-1 to El Capitan: The Evolution of Supercomputers | Chaos Lever

41:21
 
Share
 

Fetch error

Hmmm there seems to be a problem fetching this series right now. Last successful fetch was on September 05, 2025 16:54 (4M ago)

What now? This series will be checked again in the next day. If you believe it should be working, please verify the publisher's feed link below is valid and includes actual episode links. You can contact support to request the feed be immediately fetched.

Manage episode 456381814 series 3378962
Content provided by Chaos Lever, Ned Bellavance, and Chris Hayner. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Chaos Lever, Ned Bellavance, and Chris Hayner or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://podcastplayer.com/legal.

Get ready for an electrifying ride through the history and evolution of supercomputers! From the groundbreaking Cray-1 to today’s mind-blowing El Capitan, we cover it all—with tangents about Interstellar, floating-point math, and why your iPhone is basically a mini-supercomputer. Join Ned and Chris as they unleash chaos on computing history! 🤖💻✨

What’s Inside:
📚 Seymour Cray: The genius who made supercomputers... and left his own companies
🔥 From mega-flops to exa-flops: Explaining performance in layman’s terms
🌍 Supercomputers solving global warming (well, trying...)

Take Our Survey!
💬 We want to hear from you! Visit https://chaoslever.com/survey and share your thoughts before the month ends.

Links:
- TOP 500 Linear Graph: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOP500#/media/File:Supercomputers-history.svg
- FLOPS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_point_operations_per_second
- TOP 500 64th edition: https://top500.org/lists/top500/2024/11/highs/
- Cray History Timeline: https://cray-history.net/2021/07/19/cray-timeline-documents/
- Cray Background: https://www.invent.org/inductees/seymour-cray
- Cray-1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cray-1
- Sneakers scene: https://youtu.be/coDtzN6bXAM?si=JvAwJb416pxRuANq&t=43

Chapters:
00:00 Welcome, Alleged Humans
01:28 Interstellar: Did We Learn Anything?
04:15 What Makes a Supercomputer "Super"?
10:12 Seymour Cray: A Singular Visionary
23:08 The Cray-1: Breaking Barriers in 1975
36:40 From Supercomputers to HPC Clusters
48:55 Modern Era: GPUs, Exa-Flops, and El Capitan
01:20:00 Fun Facts: Your iPhone = A Supercomputer in 2010?!
01:40:00 Wrapping It Up: Sneakers and PlayStation Supercomputers

Let us know your favorite fact from the episode in the comments! 👇

  continue reading

251 episodes

Artwork
iconShare
 

Fetch error

Hmmm there seems to be a problem fetching this series right now. Last successful fetch was on September 05, 2025 16:54 (4M ago)

What now? This series will be checked again in the next day. If you believe it should be working, please verify the publisher's feed link below is valid and includes actual episode links. You can contact support to request the feed be immediately fetched.

Manage episode 456381814 series 3378962
Content provided by Chaos Lever, Ned Bellavance, and Chris Hayner. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Chaos Lever, Ned Bellavance, and Chris Hayner or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://podcastplayer.com/legal.

Get ready for an electrifying ride through the history and evolution of supercomputers! From the groundbreaking Cray-1 to today’s mind-blowing El Capitan, we cover it all—with tangents about Interstellar, floating-point math, and why your iPhone is basically a mini-supercomputer. Join Ned and Chris as they unleash chaos on computing history! 🤖💻✨

What’s Inside:
📚 Seymour Cray: The genius who made supercomputers... and left his own companies
🔥 From mega-flops to exa-flops: Explaining performance in layman’s terms
🌍 Supercomputers solving global warming (well, trying...)

Take Our Survey!
💬 We want to hear from you! Visit https://chaoslever.com/survey and share your thoughts before the month ends.

Links:
- TOP 500 Linear Graph: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOP500#/media/File:Supercomputers-history.svg
- FLOPS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_point_operations_per_second
- TOP 500 64th edition: https://top500.org/lists/top500/2024/11/highs/
- Cray History Timeline: https://cray-history.net/2021/07/19/cray-timeline-documents/
- Cray Background: https://www.invent.org/inductees/seymour-cray
- Cray-1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cray-1
- Sneakers scene: https://youtu.be/coDtzN6bXAM?si=JvAwJb416pxRuANq&t=43

Chapters:
00:00 Welcome, Alleged Humans
01:28 Interstellar: Did We Learn Anything?
04:15 What Makes a Supercomputer "Super"?
10:12 Seymour Cray: A Singular Visionary
23:08 The Cray-1: Breaking Barriers in 1975
36:40 From Supercomputers to HPC Clusters
48:55 Modern Era: GPUs, Exa-Flops, and El Capitan
01:20:00 Fun Facts: Your iPhone = A Supercomputer in 2010?!
01:40:00 Wrapping It Up: Sneakers and PlayStation Supercomputers

Let us know your favorite fact from the episode in the comments! 👇

  continue reading

251 episodes

All episodes

×
 
Loading …

Welcome to Player FM!

Player FM is scanning the web for high-quality podcasts for you to enjoy right now. It's the best podcast app and works on Android, iPhone, and the web. Signup to sync subscriptions across devices.

 

Copyright 2026 | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | | Copyright
Listen to this show while you explore
Play