The Cray XMS was a

vector processor In computing, a vector processor or array processor is a central processing unit (CPU) that implements an instruction set where its instructions are designed to operate efficiently and effectively on large one-dimensional arrays of data called ...

minisupercomputer Minisupercomputers constituted a short-lived class of computers that emerged in the mid-1980s, characterized by the combination of vector processing and small-scale multiprocessing. As scientific computing using vector processors became more popul ...

sold by

Cray Research Cray Inc., a subsidiary of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, is an American supercomputer manufacturer headquartered in Seattle, Washington. It also manufactures systems for data storage and analytics. Several Cray supercomputer systems are listed i ...

from 1990 to 1991. The XMS was originally designed by Supertek Computers Inc. as the Supertek S-1, intended to be a low-cost air-cooled clone of the

Cray X-MP The Cray X-MP was a supercomputer designed, built and sold by Cray, Cray Research. It was announced in 1982 as the "cleaned up" successor to the 1975 Cray-1, and was the world's fastest computer from 1983 to 1985 with a quad-processor system perfo ...

with a

CMOS Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS, pronounced "sea-moss ", , ) is a type of MOSFET, metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) semiconductor device fabrication, fabrication process that uses complementary an ...

re-implementation of the X-MP processor architecture, and a

VMEbus VMEbus (Versa Module Eurocard bus) is a computer bus standard physically based on Eurocard sizes. History In 1979, during development of the Motorola 68000 CPU, one of their engineers, Jack Kister, decided to set about creating a standar ...

-based Input/Output Subsystem (IOS). The XMS could run Cray's

UNICOS UNICOS is a range of Unix and later Linux operating system (OS) variants developed by Cray for its supercomputers. UNICOS is the successor of the Cray Operating System (COS). It provides network clustering and source code compatibility layers fo ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

. Supertek were acquired by Cray Research in 1990, and the S-1 was rebadged XMS by Cray. Its processor had a 55 ns clock period (18.2 MHz clock frequency) and 16 megawords (128 MB) of memory. The CRAY XMS system was the first CRI computer system to be supported by removable disk drives. Serial 5011, on display, was used for marketing purposes in the Eastern Region. It traveled for over 80,000 miles during its short working life and appeared at many trade shows. The XMS was a short-lived model, and was superseded by the Cray Y-MP EL, which was under development by Supertek (as the Supertek S-2 and briefly as the Cray YMS) at the time of the Cray acquisition. Though powerful for its time, the CRAY XMS only had half the processing power of

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

's original

Xbox Xbox is a video gaming brand that consists of four main home video game console lines, as well as application software, applications (games), the streaming media, streaming service Xbox Cloud Gaming, and online services such as the Xbox networ ...

gaming console.

References

Fred Gannett's Cray FAQ

* ttps://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE1DC133EF933A05750C0A966958260 ''Cray in Deal To Acquire Supertek'', New York Times Computer-related introductions in 1990 Xms Vector supercomputers 64-bit computers {{super-compu-stub