Bearing more resemblance to a modern art installation than a powerful supercomputer, the Cray X-MP/22 was the fastest computer in the world in the 1980s.  Invented and built by Lester T. Davis and a small team at Cray Research Inc., this computer was used from 1986 – 1992 at the Laboratory of Mathematical Biology, a part of the National Cancer Institute, in the Advanced Scientific Computing Laboratory.  Although housed in Maryland, this computer was used via network by scientists across the country and has the distinction of being the first supercomputer dedicated solely to biomedical research.  It was used in applications such as crystallography, DNA sequence analysis, image processing, molecular structure determination, and statistical analysis. 

Currently, we are developing an exhibit about our Cray X-MP/22 supercomputer.  Check back often because we’ll be adding more information.