Supertek Computers Explained

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]

Notes and References

  1. Clark . Don . April 27, 1989 . Supertek's Minisupercomputer Clone . San Francisco Chronicle . Chronicle Publishing Company . C3 . ProQuest.
  2. Fisher . Lawrence M. . March 30, 1990 . Cray in Deal To Acquire Supertek . The New York Times . D4 . https://archive.today/20130104065609/http://www.nytimes.com/1990/03/30/business/cray-in-deal-to-acquire-supertek.html . January 4, 2013.
  3. Davis . Dudght . June 15, 1991 . Cray Research Inc. . Datamation . Reed Business Information . 37 . 12 . 74 . Gale.
  4. Book: Trew . Arthur . Greg Wilson . 2012 . Past, Present, Parallel: A Survey of Available Parallel Computer Systems . Springer London . 250 . 9781447118428 . Google Books.
  5. Web site: 2020 . Cray Research EL-98 . Rhode Island Computer Museum . https://web.archive.org/web/20221207033607/https://www.ricomputermuseum.org/collections-gallery/equipment/cray-research-el-98 . December 7, 2022.