CSSE UNWRAPS AN EARLY PRESENT
The Computer Science and Software Engineering Department is the recent recipient of an exciting donation: a Cray CX-1, one of the very first supercomputers designed for office / desk side use. The donation was masterminded by Zach Tiffany( BS Software Engineering, 2009), an employee at Cray. When the company decided to donate a CX-1, Tiffany made sure UW-Platteville entered the lottery for the machine, pictured below.
The Cray CX-1, a pioneer of small supercomputers, was notable for its 64- processor core, innovative cooling system, and touch-screen control panel, which allowed users to monitor power consumption, core temperature, and fan speeds. Here, Steve Behling from Cray helps unpack the machine while Dr. Alkhushayni and Donna Gavin, Computer Science, look on.
The machine will be used in computer architecture and operating systems classes; it can also be used for“ big data” research, which refers to analysis of data sets too large to be manageable by ordinary software( typically, data measured in tera- or petabytes would fall into this category). With the addition of the Cray CX-1 to the CSSE department, UW-Platteville students will be gaining hands-on experience with supercomputing— a valuable advantage in their career preparation.
Pictured from left to right: Dan Dargel, UW-Platteville ITS and alum( Class of 1991); Dr. Songqing Yue, Software Engineering; representative Steve Behling from Cray; Dr. Suboh Alkhushayni, Computer Science; Donna Gavin, Computer Science; and alum Zach Tiffany, employee at Cray.