Supertek Computers Inc. | |
Founder: | Mike Fung |
Fate: | Acquired by Cray |
Products: | Supertek S-1 |
Industry: | Computer |
Type: | Public |
Supertek Computers Inc. was a computer company founded in Santa Clara, California in 1985 by Mike Fung, an ex-Hewlett-Packard project manager, with the aim of designing and selling low-cost minisupercomputers compatible with those from Cray Research.[1]
Its first product was the Supertek S-1, a compact, air-cooled, CMOS clone of the Cray X-MP vector processor supercomputer running the CTSS (Cray Time Sharing System) operating system, and later a version of Unix. This was launched in 1989; although Supertek had raised US$21.4 million in venture capital, only $5 million of this was needed to develop the S-1. Only ten units were sold before Supertek was acquired by Cray Research in 1990.[2] The S-1 was subsequently sold for a brief time by Cray as the Cray XMS.[3]
At the time of the acquisition the Supertek S-2, a clone of the Cray Y-MP, was under development. This was eventually launched as the Cray Y-MP EL in 1992.[4] [5]