Seymour was a cofounder of Control Data Corporation in 1957 where he gained his reputation as the designer of the fastest computers in the world.
Cray was the primary designer of the Control Data 1604 (1962),
the Control Data 6600 (1966) and the CDC 7600.
He left Control Data in 1972 to form Cray Research in his hometown, Chippewa Falls Wisconsin, "the Land of Cows and Cold" (authors opinion)
There he designed the Cray I (1976) as Cray Research quickly took over Control Data's lead as the manufacturer of the world's fastest computers. Seymour was busy designing the Cray II when Cray Research introduced the very successful X series designed by another engineering team. Notably this was the first large scale computer to use SMP (Symmetric Multiple Processors)
When his company cancelled production of
the Cray II (Editor: approx 27 where delivered) & III series
(Editor: The II was Seymour's baby, none delivered), he left and
started again, forming Cray Computer in Colorado Springs. "He again
built a computer that was the briefly the fastest computer in the
world, but fate would see that it was never marketed."
Correction 3/14/2005 10:00PM - The above was quoted and techically
correct, but we found that one Cray 3 (not a Cray III but similarities
existed) was delivered by his new company, Cray Computer. This
was a processor built from GaAs that was the last operational computer
that Cray Computer Corporation built. It operated in 1993 at the
National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) until the company
folded. (see 'Making of a Cray 3 below')
Seymour was killed in an auto accident at the age of 71 in 1996.
From 1974 to the late 1980's Software & Communication Concepts, Inc. (founded by Gary Demi) designed and implemented computer hardware and software into a device called a Front-End Processor (these days called a Router or Gateway) that connected Cray's computers with wide area networks that stretched around the world.
These systems where priced from $100,000 to $1M for a redundant Front-end connecting multiple Control Data/Cray computers. The mainframes would rely on the Front-end for all Data Communication and local peripherals (printers, card readers & punches. Data communication speeds at the time ranged from 300 bps to 56k bps.
Our Systems were used with Control Data & Cray computers by numerous government agencies, educational institutions and large companies including the AEC (Atomic Energy Commission), National Weather Service (NOAA), US Bureau of Reclamation, Boeing Aircraft (formerly McDonnell Douglas) and were sometimes used to do things we aren't even allowed to talk about, according to the Department of Defense's Investigative Agency (DIA).
All research and development of the front-end system was done in Houston, much of it at Region IV Education Service Center, a state funded agency providing computer services for secondary schools.