8-bit byte were all concepts later incorporated in the IBM 360 line of computers as well as almost all third-generation processors and beyond. Instruction pipelining, prefetch and decoding, and memory interleaving were used in later supercomputer designs such as the IBM 360 Models 91, 95, and 195, as well as in computers from other manufacturers. These techniques are now used in most advanced microprocessors, such as the Intel Pentium and the Motorola/IBM PowerPC.”⁸ Similarly, LARC technologies were used in Sperry Rand’s UNIVAC III.⁹

Yet another feature of the supercomputer marketplace also became established over this period: a high mortality rate for the companies involved. IBM exited the supercomputer market in the mid-1970s. Sperry Rand exited the supercomputer market a few years after many of its supercomputer designers left to found the new powerhouse that came to dominate U.S. supercomputers in the 1960s—the Control Data Corporation (CDC).

From the mid-1960s to the late 1970s, the global U.S. supercomputer industry was dominated by two U.S. companies: CDC and its offspring, Cray Research. Both companies traced their roots back to ERA, which had been absorbed by Sperry Rand in 1952. A substantial portion of this talent pool (including Seymour Cray) left to form a new company, CDC, in 1957. CDC was to become the dominant manufacturer of supercomputers from the mid-1960s through the mid-1970s. Government users, particularly the intelligence community, funded development of CDC’s first commercial offering, the CDC 1604. In 1966 CDC shipped its first full-scale supercomputer, the CDC 6600, a huge success. In addition to offering an order of magnitude jump in absolute computational capability (see Figure 3.1), it did so very cost effectively. As suggested by Figure 3.2, computing power was delivered by the 6600 at a price comparable to or lower than that of the best cost/performance in mainstream commercial machines.¹⁰