Vandenberg AFB: The Last Cyber Mainframes, a 39-year era comes to an end

[Daiyu Hurst]

The last CDC Cybers in regular operation were recently shut down:

https://santamariatimes.com/news/local/military/vandenberg/the-last-cyber-mainframes-a-39-year-era-comes-to-an-end/article_5ac69350-b95e-5457-8948-8991078b6495.html

When they were having trouble in 2015, I got a "service call" from Jerry Hines, who was the last working CDC/Syntegra/BT Federal Customer Engineer working on the machines. I referred him to someone with experience with the more recent machine; my experience was limited to the older & semi-compatible 6000 Series and a single Cyber 172 at Indiana University.

-Dai

[Joe Pfeiffer]

The article states, "...the Cyber systems were upgraded many times,
including eliminating the water cooling..." How would this have been
possible? Slowed down the clock rate? Turned out they hadn't needed to
be water cooled in the first place?

[Scott Lurndal]

Post by Joe Pfeiffer
The article states, "...the Cyber systems were upgraded many times,
including eliminating the water cooling..." How would this have been
possible? Slowed down the clock rate? Turned out they hadn't needed to
be water cooled in the first place?

newer hardware with lower TDP per unit volume.

[J. Clarke]

On Tue, 07 Sep 2021 12:03:16 -0600, Joe Pfeiffer

Post by Joe Pfeiffer
The article states, "...the Cyber systems were upgraded many times,
including eliminating the water cooling..." How would this have been
possible? Slowed down the clock rate? Turned out they hadn't needed to
be water cooled in the first place?

Maybe they went to nitrogen cooling.

Note--some motherboards today have configuration settings for nitrogen
cooling--it seems mostly to be a stunt but if you can afford a big
enough liquefier it could work.

[Charlie Gibbs]

Post by J. Clarke
On Tue, 07 Sep 2021 12:03:16 -0600, Joe Pfeiffer

Post by Joe Pfeiffer
The article states, "...the Cyber systems were upgraded many times,
including eliminating the water cooling..." How would this have been
possible? Slowed down the clock rate? Turned out they hadn't needed to
be water cooled in the first place?

Maybe they went to nitrogen cooling.
Note--some motherboards today have configuration settings for nitrogen
cooling--it seems mostly to be a stunt but if you can afford a big
enough liquefier it could work.

My machines have 78% nitrogen cooling. :-)

[Quadibloc]

Post by Joe Pfeiffer
The article states, "...the Cyber systems were upgraded many times,
including eliminating the water cooling..." How would this have been
possible? Slowed down the clock rate? Turned out they hadn't needed to
be water cooled in the first place?

My guess, when I read the article, had been that they replaced most of
the circuitry by a different generation of electronics.

John Savard

[Joe Pfeiffer]

Post by Quadibloc

Post by Joe Pfeiffer
The article states, "...the Cyber systems were upgraded many times,
including eliminating the water cooling..." How would this have been
possible? Slowed down the clock rate? Turned out they hadn't needed to
be water cooled in the first place?

My guess, when I read the article, had been that they replaced most of
the circuitry by a different generation of electronics.
John Savard

That's as good a guess as any, I suppose. I'm a little surprised there
were new generations of electronics in them, in that case.

[Daiyu Hurst]

John Zabolitsky has some pictures of his Cyber 960 here:

https://cray-cyber.org/category/cdc-cyber-960/

-Dai

[Daiyu Hurst]

Post by Joe Pfeiffer
The article states, "...the Cyber systems were upgraded many times,
including eliminating the water cooling..." How would this have been
possible? Slowed down the clock rate? Turned out they hadn't needed to
be water cooled in the first place?

The older Cybers were replaced by newer Cybers. The article was written by a reporter- not a technologist.