Control Data Corporation
More info
- Creator
- William Norris et al.
- Released
- 1957–1992
- Type
- Computer manufacturer
The Minneapolis company that built the world's fastest computer in 1964 and left IBM's chief asking how thirty-four people had beaten him.
William Norris and a group from Sperry Rand – heirs of Engineering Research Associates – set up the company in 1957, and Seymour Cray came along. The CDC 1604 (1960) was one of the first fully transistorised computers, and the CDC 6600 (1964) was roughly three times faster than anything else around. Thomas Watson Jr wrote a famous internal memo noting that the team behind it numbered 34 people, "including the janitor".
IBM responded by announcing competing machines that didn't exist yet. CDC sued in 1968 and won IBM's Service Bureau Corporation in the settlement. Norris then poured money into the PLATO education system, which never turned a profit. Cray left in 1972, and in 1992 the company was broken up into Ceridian and Control Data Systems.