A Cray-1 supercomputer replica from 30 "obsolete" Mac Minis

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The Museo de Historia de la Computación in Spain has unveiled a 1:1 scale visual replica of the famous Cray-1 supercomputer from 1976. Instead of sourcing expensive, cutting-edge tech to run the system, the creative team powered the project with 30 2012-era Mac Minis.

位于西班牙的计算机历史博物馆（Museo de Historia de la Computación）近日揭幕了一台 1976 年著名 Cray-1 超级计算机的 1:1 视觉复刻版。为了运行该系统，创作团队并没有采购昂贵的前沿技术，而是使用了 30 台 2012 年产的 Mac Mini 作为动力核心。

Developed over 18 months, the project serves as a 50th-anniversary tribute to the Cray-1 and Apple’s founding. Mac Minis from over a decade ago might not seem like the obvious first choice for building a cluster supercomputer, but when networked together, the developers can orchestrate the 64 active processing cores into a combined 1.3 teraflops of performance in their most recent tests.

该项目历时 18 个月开发，旨在向 Cray-1 和苹果公司的创立 50 周年致敬。虽然十多年前的 Mac Mini 看起来并非构建超级计算机集群的首选，但当它们联网后，开发人员在最近的测试中成功协调了 64 个活跃处理核心，实现了 1.3 万亿次浮点运算（teraflops）的综合性能。

The museum reportedly achieved 1.5 teraflops previously using all 70 available cores, prior to one node going offline. Benchmarks were obtained using a custom matrix-multiplication Python script. Five PCs are quad-core i7s, and the remaining 25 are dual-core i5 models. Except for two units from 2014, the rest of the array dates to 2012.

据报道，在其中一个节点离线之前，博物馆曾利用全部 70 个可用核心达到了 1.5 万亿次浮点运算的性能。基准测试是通过自定义的矩阵乘法 Python 脚本获得的。其中 5 台电脑为四核 i7 型号，其余 25 台为双核 i5 型号。除了两台 2014 年的设备外，其余设备均产自 2012 年。

The replica is a valuable tool for museum-goers to understand the shifts in computer architecture since 1976. The original Cray-1 used vector processing, applying a single instruction to multiple data elements simultaneously, whereas the replica distributes work across independent processors in a parallel cluster. The peak theoretical performance of the original Cray-1 was approximately 160 megaflops.

对于参观者来说，这台复刻版机器是了解自 1976 年以来计算机架构演变的宝贵工具。原始的 Cray-1 使用向量处理技术，即对多个数据元素同时应用单一指令，而复刻版则是通过并行集群将工作分配给独立的处理器。原始 Cray-1 的峰值理论性能约为 1.6 亿次浮点运算（megaflops）。

What was originally a purpose-built research machine has been re-created with consumer hardware that’s vastly more capable than the machine that inspired it. Rather than opting for a more standard Linux distribution, the team found that macOS Mojave (10.14) met their project needs by harnessing macOS’s built-in support for MPI (Message Passing Interface), the software layer that allows all the nodes in the cluster to pass tasks to one another.

这台最初的专用研究机器，如今被消费级硬件重新打造，其性能远超其致敬的原型机。团队没有选择更标准的 Linux 发行版，而是发现 macOS Mojave (10.14) 通过利用其内置的 MPI（消息传递接口）支持，满足了项目需求；该软件层允许集群中的所有节点相互传递任务。

Guests at the Museo de Historia de la Computación can watch in real time as the system runs matrix algorithms, mapping the scale of system performance from a single core to the full suite running in parallel.

计算机历史博物馆的访客可以实时观察系统运行矩阵算法的过程，并查看从单核心到全套并行运行的系统性能规模映射。

Combining 30 consumer PCs into an operational cluster wasn’t the only engineering challenge the team faced. If you’ve ever stepped inside a server room, or, like me, foolishly installed one in your own basement, you know that fan cooling can be loud. The museum team used passive convection cooling via a steel rack chassis and aluminum tray mounts for each Mac Mini. Compared to the roaring thunder of a modern data center, this cluster is nearly inaudible.

将 30 台消费级电脑组合成一个可运行的集群，并不是团队面临的唯一工程挑战。如果你曾走进过服务器机房，或者像我一样愚蠢地在地下室安装过一台，你就会知道风扇冷却的声音有多大。博物馆团队通过钢制机架底盘和每个 Mac Mini 的铝制托盘支架，采用了被动对流冷却方式。与现代数据中心轰鸣的噪音相比，这个集群几乎静音。

The secret to the near-silence comes from vertical mounting. The PCs’ vertical orientation, combined with the steel chassis and aluminum trays, allows the tower to act as a natural thermal chimney. Hot air rises through the structure and out of the top grills without the need for added mechanical fans.

近乎静音的秘诀在于垂直安装。电脑的垂直摆放方式，结合钢制底盘和铝制托盘，使整个塔架形成了一个天然的热烟囱。热空气通过结构上升并从顶部格栅排出，无需额外的机械风扇。

To manage this quiet giant, designers built a custom terminal that looks straight out of a Cold War control room. The team combined elements of the DEC VT05 and Processor Technology Sol-20 Terminal Computer designs of the 1970s, even incorporating an analog control panel, with future plans to add original lamps from an IBM System/3. One master Mac Mini resides in the terminal and serves to direct all the other cluster nodes.

为了管理这个安静的庞然大物，设计师建造了一个看起来像是直接从冷战控制室搬出来的定制终端。团队结合了 20 世纪 70 年代 DEC VT05 和 Processor Technology Sol-20 终端计算机的设计元素，甚至加入了一个模拟控制面板，并计划在未来添加来自 IBM System/3 的原始指示灯。一台主 Mac Mini 驻留在终端内，负责指挥集群中的所有其他节点。

The Cray-1 team hopes to fill the currently empty second half of the tower through a crowdfunding campaign to secure 70–80 additional M4 Mac Minis. The goal: create a cluster capable of ranking on the TOP500 supercomputers list.

Cray-1 团队希望通过众筹活动筹集 70 到 80 台额外的 M4 Mac Mini，以填补目前塔架中空置的另一半空间。他们的目标是：创建一个能够跻身 TOP500 超级计算机排行榜的集群。