Control Data Corporation (CDC) was a mainframe and supercomputer company that in the 1960s was one of the nine major U.S. computer companies, which group included IBM, Burroughs Corporation, Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), NCR Corporation (NCR), General Electric, Honeywell, RCA, and UNIVAC. For most of the 1960s, the strength of CDC was the work of the electrical engineer Seymour Cray who developed a series of fast computers, then considered the fastest computing machines in the world; in the 1970s, Cray left the Control Data Corporation and founded Cray Research (CRI) to design and make supercomputers. In 1988, after much financial loss, the Control Data Corporation began withdrawing from making computers and sold the affiliated companies of CDC; in 1992, CDC established Control Data Systems, Inc. The remaining affiliate companies of CDC do business as the software company Dayforce.
Background: World War II – 1957
During World War II the U.S. Navy had built up a classified team of engineers to build codebreaking machinery[1] for both Japanese and German electro-mechanical ciphers. A number of these were produced by a team dedicated to the task working in the Washington, D.C., area. With the post-war wind-down of military spending, the Navy grew increasingly worried that this team would break up and scatter into various companies, and it started looking for ways to keep the code-breaking team together.[2]
Eventually they found their solution: John Parker, the owner of a Chase Aircraft affiliate named Northwestern Aeronautical Corporation[3] located in St. Paul, Minnesota, was about to lose all his contracts due to the ending of the war. The Navy never told Parker exactly what the team did, since it would have taken too long to get top secret clearance. Instead they simply said the team was important, and they would be very happy if he hired them all. Parker was obviously wary, but after several meetings with increasingly high-ranking Naval officers it became apparent that whatever it was, they were serious, and he eventually agreed to give this team a home in his military glider factory.[4]
The result was Engineering Research Associates (ERA). Formed in 1946,[3] this contract engineering company worked on a number of seemingly unrelated projects in the early 1950s.[4] Among these was the ERA Atlas, an early military stored program computer, the basis of the Univac 1101, which was followed by the 1102, and then the 36-bit ERA 1103 (UNIVAC 1103). The Atlas was built for the Navy, which intended to use it in their non-secret code-breaking centers. In the early 1950s a minor political debate broke out in Congress about the Navy essentially "owning" ERA, and the ensuing debates and legal wrangling left the company drained of both capital and spirit. In 1952, Parker sold ERA to Remington Rand.
Although Rand kept the ERA team together and developing new products, it was most interested in ERA's magnetic drum memory systems. Rand soon merged with Sperry Corporation to become Sperry Rand.[5] In the process of merging the companies, the ERA division was folded into Sperry's UNIVAC division. At first this did not cause too many changes at ERA, since the company was used primarily to provide engineering talent to support a variety of projects. However, one major project was moved from UNIVAC to ERA, the UNIVAC II project, which led to lengthy delays and upsets to nearly everyone involved.
Since the Sperry "big company" mentality encroached on the decision-making powers of the ERA employees, a number left Sperry to form the Control Data Corp. in September 1957,[6] setting up shop in an old warehouse across the river from Sperry's St. Paul laboratory, in Minneapolis at 501 Park Avenue. Of the members forming CDC, William Norris was the unanimous choice to become the chief executive officer of the new company. Seymour Cray soon became the chief designer, though at the time of CDC's formation he was still in the process of completing a prototype for the Naval Tactical Data System (NTDS), and he did not leave Sperry to join CDC until it was complete. The M-460 was Seymour's first transistor computer, though the power supply rectifiers were still tubes.[7]
Early designs and Cray's big plan
CDC started business by selling subsystems, mostly drum memory systems, to other companies.[8] Cray joined the next year, and he immediately built a small transistor-based 6-bit machine known as the "CDC Little Character" to test his ideas on large-system design and transistor-based machines.[9] "Little Character" was a great success.
In 1959, CDC released a 48-bit transistorized version of their re-design of the 1103 re-design [10] under the name CDC 1604; the first machine was delivered to the U.S. Navy in 1960[11] at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. Legend has it that the 1604 designation was chosen by adding CDC's first street address (501 Park Avenue) to Cray's former project, the ERA-Univac 1103.[12]
Peripherals business
In the early 1960s, the corporation moved to the Highland Park neighborhood of St. Paul where Norris lived. Through this period, Norris became increasingly worried that CDC had to develop a "critical mass" to compete with IBM. To do this, he started an aggressive program of buying up various companies[14] to round out CDC's peripheral lineup. In general, they tried to offer a product to compete with any of IBM's, but running 10% faster and costing 10% less. This was not always easy to achieve.
One of its first peripherals was a tape transport, which led to some internal wrangling as the Peripherals Equipment Division attempted to find a reasonable way to charge other divisions of the company for supplying the devices. If the division simply "gave" them away at cost as part of a system purchase, they would never have a real budget of their own. Instead, a plan was established in which it would share profits with the divisions selling its peripherals, a plan eventually used throughout the company.
The tape transport was followed by the 405 Card Reader and the 415 Card Punch,[15] followed by a series of tape drives and drum printers, all of which were designed in-house. The printer business was initially supported by Holley Carburetor in the Rochester, Michigan suburb outside of Detroit. They later formalized this by creating a jointly held company,
Control Data Institute
Control Data created an international technical/computer vocational school from the mid-1960s to the late 1980s. By the late 1970s there were sixty-nine learning centers worldwide, serving 18,000 students.[17]
CDC 6600: defining supercomputing
Meanwhile, at the new Chippewa Falls lab, Seymour Cray, Jim Thornton, and Dean Roush put together a team of 34 engineers, which continued work on the new computer design. One of the ways they hoped to improve the CDC 1604 was to use better transistors, and Cray used the new silicon transistors using the planar process, developed by Fairchild Semiconductor. These were much faster than the germanium transistors in the 1604, without the drawbacks of the older mesa silicon transistors. The speed of light restriction forced a more compact design with refrigeration designed by Dean Roush.[18] In 1964, the resulting computer was released onto the market as the CDC 6600, out-performing everything on the market by roughly ten times. When it sold over 100 units at $8 million ($ million in dollars) each; it was considered a supercomputer.
The 6600 had a 100ns, transistor-based CPU (Central Processing Unit) with multiple asynchronous functional units, using 10 logical, external I/O processors to off-load many common tasks and core memory. That way, the CPU could devote all of its time and circuitry to processing actual data, while the other controllers dealt with the mundane tasks like punching cards and running disk drives. Using late-model compilers, the machine attained a standard mathematical operations rate of 500 kiloFLOPS, but handcrafted assembly managed to deliver approximately 1 megaFLOPS. A simpler, albeit much slower and less expensive version, implemented using a more traditional serial processor design rather than the 6600's parallel functional units, was released as the
CDC 7600 and 8600
In the same month it won its lawsuit against IBM, CDC announced its new computer, the CDC 7600[22] (previously referred to as the 6800 within CDC). This machine's hardware clock speed was almost four times that of the 6600 (36 MHz vs. 10 MHz), with a 27.5 ns clock cycle, and it offered considerably more than four times the total throughput, with much of the speed increase coming from extensive use of pipelining.
The 7600 did not sell well because it was introduced during the 1969 downturn in the U.S. national economy. Its complexity had led to poor reliability. The machine was not totally compatible with the 6000-series and required a completely different operating system, which like most new OSs, was primitive. The 7600 project paid for itself, but damaged CDC's reputation. The 7600 memory had a split primary- and secondary-memory which required user management but was more than fast enough to make it the fastest uniprocessor from 1969 to 1976. A few dozen 7600s were the computers of choice at supercomputer centers around the world.
Cray then turned to the design of the CDC 8600. This design included four 7600-like processors in a single, smaller case. The smaller size and shorter signal paths allowed the 8600 to run at much higher clock speeds which, together with faster memory, provided most of the performance gains. The 8600, however, belonged to the "old school" in terms of its physical construction, and it used individual components soldered to circuit boards. The design was so compact that cooling the CPU modules proved effectively impossible, and access for maintenance difficult. An abundance of hot-running solder joints ensured that the machines did not work reliably; Cray recognized that a re-design was needed.
The STAR and the Cyber
In addition to the redesign of the 8600, CDC had another project called the CDC STAR-100 under way, led by Cray's former collaborator on the 6600/7600, Jim Thornton. Unlike the 8600's "four computers in one box" solution to the speed problem, the STAR was a new design using a unit that we know today as the vector processor. By highly pipelining mathematical instructions with purpose-built instructions and hardware, mathematical processing is dramatically improved in a machine that was otherwise slower than a 7600. Although the particular set of problems it would be best at solving was limited compared to the general-purpose 7600, it was for solving exactly these problems that customers would buy CDC machines.
Since these two projects competed for limited funds during the late 1960s, Norris felt that the company could not support simultaneous development of the STAR and a complete redesign of the 8600. Therefore, Cray left CDC to form the Cray Research company in 1972. Norris remained, however, a staunch supporter of Cray, and invested money into Cray's new company. In 1974 CDC released the STAR,[23] designated as the Cyber 203. It turned out to have "real world" performance that was considerably worse than expected. STAR's chief designer, Jim Thornton, then left CDC to form the Network Systems Corporation.
In 1975, a STAR-100 was placed into service in a Control Data service center which was considered the first supercomputer in a data center. Founder William C. Norris presided at the podium for the press conference announcing the new service. Publicity was a key factor in making the announcement a success by coordinating the event with Guinness
Magnetic Peripherals Inc.
Meanwhile, several very large Japanese manufacturing firms were entering the market. The supercomputer market was too small to support more than a handful of companies, so CDC started looking for other markets. One of these was the hard disk drive (HDD) market.
Magnetic Peripherals Inc., later Imprimis Technology, was originally a joint venture with Honeywell formed in 1975 to manufacture HDDs for both companies. CII-Honeywell Bull later purchased a 3 percent interest in MPI from Honeywell. Sperry became a partner in 1983 with 17 percent, making the ownership split CDC (67%) and Honeywell (17%). MPI was a captive supplier to its parents. It sold on an OEM basis only to them,[24] while CDC sold MPI product to third parties under its brand name.
It became a major player in the HDD market. It was the worldwide leader in 14-inch disk drive technology in the OEM marketplace in the late 1970s and early 1980s especially with its SMD (Storage Module Device) and CMD (Cartridge Module Drive), with its plant at Brynmawr in the South Wales valleys running 24/7 production. The Magnetic Peripherals division in Brynmawr had produced 1 million disks and 3 million magnetic tapes by October 1979. CDC was an early developer of the eight-inch drive technology with products from its MPI Oklahoma City Operation. Its CDC Wren series drives were particularly popular with high end users, although it was behind the capacity growth and performance curves of numerous startups such as
Investments
Control Data held interests in other companies including computer research company Arbitron, Commercial Credit Corporation and Ticketron.
Commercial Credit Corporation
In 1968, Commercial Credit Corporation was the target of a hostile takeover by Loews Inc.[27] Loews had acquired nearly 10% of CCC, which it intended to break up on acquisition.[28] To avoid the takeover, CCC forged a deal with CDC lending them the money to purchase control in CCC instead, and "That is how a computer company came to own a fleet of fishing boats in the Chesapeake Bay."[29] By the 1980s, Control Data entered an unstable period, which resulted in the company liquidating many of their assets. In 1986, Sandy Weill convinced the Control Data management to spin off their Commercial Credit subsidiary to prevent the company's potential liquidation.
ETA Systems, wind-down and sale of assets
CDC decided to fight for the high-performance niche, but Norris considered that the company had become moribund and unable to quickly design competitive machines. In 1983 he set up a spinoff company, ETA Systems, whose design goal was a machine processing data at 10 GFLOPs, about 40 times the speed of the Cray-1. The design never fully matured, and it was unable to reach its goals. Nevertheless, the product was one of the fastest computers on the market, and 7 liquid nitrogen-cooled and 27 smaller air cooled versions of the computers were sold during the next few years. They used the new CMOS chips, which produced much less heat. The effort ended after half-hearted attempts to sell ETA Systems. In 1989, most of the employees of ETA Systems were laid off, and the remaining ones were folded into CDC.
Despite having valuable technology, CDC still suffered huge losses in 1985 ($567 million[33]) and 1986 while attempting to reorganize. As a result, in 1987 it sold its PathLab Laboratory Information System to 3M.[35] While CDC was still making computers, it was decided that hardware manufacturing was no longer as profitable as it used to be, and so in 1988 it was decided to leave the industry, bit by bit. The first division to go was Imprimis. After that, CDC sold other assets such as VTC (a chip maker that specialized in mass-storage circuitry and was closely linked with MPI), and non-computer-related assets like Ticketron.
Timeline of systems releases
* CDC 6000 series – 6200, 6400, 6500, 6700
Note : The 8xx & 9xx Cyber models, introduced beginning in 1982, formed the 64-bit Cyber 180 series, and their Peripheral Processors (PPs) were 16-bit. The 180 series had virtual memory capability, using CDC's NOS/VE operating system.[46] The more complete nomenclature for these was 180/xxx, although at times the shorter form (e.g. Cyber 990) was used.
- CDC 1604 et al – 1604, 1604-A, 1604-B, 1604-C, 924 (a "cut down" 1604 sibling)
- CDC 160 series – 160, 160A (160-A), 160G (160-G)
- CDC 3000 series – 3100, 3200, 3300, 3400, 3500, 3600, 3800
- CDC 6600
- CDC 7600
- CDC CYBER – 17, 18, 71, 72, 73, 74, 76, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 203, 205, Omega/480, 700
- CDC STAR-100
Peripheral Systems Group
Control Data Corporation's Peripheral Systems Group was both a hardware and a software development unit that functioned in the 1970s[47][48][49] and 1980s.[50]
Their services including development and marketing of IBM-oriented (operating) systems software.[50] One of the Peripheral Systems Group's software products was named CUPID, "Control Data's Program for Unlike Data Set Concatenation."[51] Its focus was for customers of IBM's MVS operating system, and the intended audience was systems programmers. The product's General Information and Reference Manual included SysGen-like options and information about internal user-accessible control blocks.
Film and science fiction references
- Mars Needs Women (1967) – a CDC 3400 is used for radio communication and to direct the actions of the military as they intercept the Martian spaceships.
- Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970) – The title sequences to this film include tape drives and other early CDC equipment.[53][54]
- The Mad Bomber (1973) – The police department has a CDC 3100 that they use to profile the bomber.[55]
- The Adolescence of P-1 (1977), by Thomas Ryan – Control Data computers were very enticing to young P-1.[54]
- The New Avengers – In episode 2-10 (#23) ("Complex", 1977) Purdey uses a CDC card reader.[54]
Further reading
- Lundstrom, David. A Few Good Men from Univac. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1987. ISBN 0-262-12120-4.
- Misa, Thomas J., ed. Building the Control Data Legacy: The Career of Robert M. Price. Minneapolis: Charles Babbage Institute, 2012 ISBN 1300058188
- Murray, Charles J. The Supermen: The Story of Seymour Cray and the Technical Wizards behind the Supercomputer. New York: John Wiley, 1997. ISBN 0-471-04885-2.
- Price, Robert M. The Eye for Innovation: Recognizing Possibilities and Managing the Creative Enterprise. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005 ISBN 030010877X
- Thornton, J. E. Design of a Computer: The Control Data 6600. Glenview, Ill.: Scott, Foresman, 1970
- Worthy, James C. William C. Norris: Portrait of a Maverick. Ballinger Pub Co., May 1987. ISBN 978-0-88730-087-5
External links
- Control Data Corporation Records at the Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; CDC records donated by Ceridian Corporation in 1991; finding guide contains historical timeline, product timeline, acquisitions list, and joint venture list.
- Oral history interview with William Norris discusses ERA years, acquisition of ERA by Remington Rand, the Univac File computer, work as head of the Univac Division, and the formation of CDC. Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
- Oral history interview with Willis K. Drake Discusses Remington-Rand, the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Company, ERA, and formation of Control Data Corporation. Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
- Organized discussion moderated by Neil R. Lincoln with eighteen Control Data Corporation (CDC) engineers on computer architecture and design. Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Engineers include Robert Moe, Wayne Specker, Dennis Grinna, Tom Rowan, Maurice Hutson, Curt Alexander, Don Pagelkopf, Maris Bergmanis, Dolan Toth, Chuck Hawley, Larry Krueger, Mike Pavlov, Dave Resnick, Howard Krohn, Bill Bhend, Kent Steiner, Raymon Kort, and Neil R. Lincoln. Discussion topics include
References
- The BITSAVERS.ORG Documents Library: Control Data Corporation^
- Thomas J. Misa, Digital State: The Story of Minnesota's Computing Industry (University of Minnesota Press, 2013)^
- Hagley Museum and Library Manuscripts and Archives^