Museum builds Cray-1 replica from old Mac Minis
A Spanish computer museum unveiled a full-scale replica of the 1976 Cray-1 supercomputer, built using 30 Mac Minis from 2012–2014. Networked together, this DIY cluster delivers up to 1.3 trillion operations per second—far beyond the original Cray-1's power. The team used Mac OS’s built-in tools to coordinate the computers, and engineered custom cooling so the display runs silently for visitors.
- 30 Mac Minis deliver 1.3 teraflops of compute
- Replica physically matches the original Cray-1's shape
- Custom Python code measures parallel performance
- macOS Mojave chosen for built-in parallel computing tools
- Consumes far less power and noise than a real supercomputer
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