TechCapsules

AI-summarised brief · reviewed before publication

A Spanish computing museum has built a full‑scale replica of the 1976 Cray‑1 supercomputer using thirty out‑of‑date Intel‑based Mac minis. The tower, assembled over 18 months, houses 25 dual‑core i5 and five quad‑core i7 2012 models, yielding 64 cores and about 1.3 teraflops of performance—roughly eight thousand times the original’s 160 megaflops. Running macOS Mojave with MPI, the cluster mimics parallel processing rather than the Cray’s vector architecture. The minis are mounted vertically, bases removed for passive cooling, and the enclosure is sound‑isolated, operating at 30‑33 decibels. Museum staff hope to add 70‑80 newer M4 Mac minis to fill the tower and reach the TOP500 list. The exhibit is open to visitors on Saturdays. It also controls two historic 2004 Cray C1X machines.