SEYMOUR CRAY
by Dragon


It was many and many a year ago,
In a city by the bay,
That a man there lived whom you may know
By the name of Seymour Cray;
And this man he lived with no other thought
Than to build the world's fastest array.

Logic was fast and memory was vast
In this city by the bay:
But no circuits were wired that were more inspired
Than the work of Seymour Cray;
With a genius that other hardware designers
Coveted every day.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this city by the bay,
A wind blew out of a fan, chilling
The circuits of Seymour Cray;
So that the high-speed data banks
Would not be too far away,
To make the data move faster still
In this city by the bay.

The logic, not half so hot as before,
Contributed less delay--
Yes!--that was the reason (as all men know,
In this city by the bay)
That the wind came out of the cooling coils,
Chilling the circuits of Seymour Cray.

But his logic was faster by far than the logic
Of other machines of his day--
Just why, not many could say--
And neither the legions of IBM,
Nor inventors in vast array,
Could ever outclever the subtle designs
Of the circuits of Seymour Cray.

For a dot never plots, without bringing me thoughts
Of the circuits of Seymour Cray;
As my program compiles, I think all the while
Of the circuits of Seymour Cray;
And so, all the night time, while the rates are off prime,
I hook up my modem--and put in my dime,
With my terminal here by the bay,
With my data so far away.

(apologies to Edgar Allen Poe and Lenore) ...the Dragon

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Author's note: Dragon (a.k.a. Charlie Kellner) is a
designer/programmer of state-of-the-art games for the Games
Division of LucasFilm Ltd in San Rafael, CA. Possessed of a
wicked and subtle sense of humor, he is often found grinning
mysteriously, and pretty soon the unexpected can be expected.