Seymour Cray, 71, Father Of Supercomputer, Dies -- Traffic Accident Claims `Genius' Of Technology

COLORADO SPRINGS - Seymour Cray, who helped develop the earliest computers to use transistors and later pioneered the extremely powerful machines known as supercomputers, died yesterday morning. He was 71.

Mr. Cray had been hospitalized since Sept. 22 when he was injured in a traffic accident. He had been in critical condition last week, hospital spokeswoman Kate Brewster said.

Mr. Cray suffered head and neck injuries in a three-car accident on Interstate 25 near the Air Force Academy.

He spent nearly 40 years searching for the world's fastest supercomputer.

"Cray's genius and singular drive have already marked indelibly the technology of this century," Business Week magazine wrote in 1990.

Larry Smarr, director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said: "There wouldn't really be a supercomputer industry as we know it except for Seymour Cray."

Supercomputers, which can cost several million dollars each, are used for sophisticated tasks like forecasting weather or building bombs. For many years, Cray Research was the U.S. leader in a world race to build the fastest computers.

But Mr. Cray's business ventures ran into rough times as demand for such computers slacked off as the Cold War ended. Also, many companies now make smaller computers with powerful microprocessors that can be joined together to match the processing speed of supercomputers.

At Control Data Corp. in the late 1950s, Mr. Cray developed one of the first computers to use radio transistors instead of vacuum tubes.

Mr. Cray also invented Reduced Instruction Set Computing, a technology that allows desktop computers to process tasks quickly.

In 1972, Mr. Cray founded Cray Research Inc. in Eagan, Minn., where, four years later, he unveiled the Cray-1 supercomputer. It was 10 times faster and more powerful than any machine on the market. He topped that with the Cray-2 in 1985, which was 10 times faster than the Cray-1.

Mr. Cray took his research on the Cray-3 to Colorado Springs in 1988 and, the following year, Cray Research spun the project into Cray Computer.

In December 1991, Cray Computer failed to meet a demonstration deadline, which prompted its only customer for the Cray-3 to withdraw its order. The company never found another buyer.

Cray Computer began work on the Cray-4. But time and money ran out and the company closed, laying off 400.

In August, Mr. Cray had embarked on a new trail, with SRC Computer Inc., a Colorado Springs-based company he opened with five employees. The mission, simply, was to "build computers."

Over the years, Mr. Cray's single-minded pursuit of knowledge gave rise to legends: that he taught physics to his high-school classmates when the science teacher was sick, that as a father he insisted his three children maintain absolute silence in the car so he could think in peace.

Born Sept. 28, 1925, in Chippewa Falls, Wis., Mr. Cray graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1950 with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering. He obtained a master's degree in applied mathematics the following year.

In addition to his wife, Geri Harrand, Mr. Cray is survived by two daughters, Susan Borman of Eau Claire, Wis., and Carolyn Arnold of Minneapolis; a son, Steven, of Chippewa Falls; and five grandchildren.