The Ballad of Seymour Cray
--Brian Fleming

Come gather 'round now children
I'll tell you story
The life, love, and legend
Of one Seymour Cray

As the Cold War set in
And space race began
Soon emerged our hero
Smartest in the land

From architecture to wiring
Every skill he knew
In Boolean logic
"Genius" equaled true

He dressed very casual
Never saw him in a suit
And when it came to instruction sets
He kept 'em minute

CHORUS:
Ohhhhhmy, Seymour Cray
Built computers so fast
the speed of light
was in his way

Did wonders with transistors
Built the 1604
But all the red tape
Sent Cray for the door

Had to escape all those meetings
and bothersome phone calls
So he packed up and moved out
to Chippewa Falls

Revolutions kept coming
IBM was jealous
How these backwoods start-ups
could cause such a fuss

His Control Data Corporation
Had a bunch of success
But before you could say "Wall Street"
Yep, you can guess

He was back on his own
No one tellin' what to do
Decided to increase speed
By a gigahertz (or two)
 
Progress marched slowly
Competition was tight
But onward pressed Seymour
Both day and all night

CHORUS

The CRAY-1 moved units
But Seymour didn't care
He was dreaming up things faster
than anyone would dare

"But investors will worry
With no progress reports!"
Things are fine. Give me quiet.
Cray would retort

CRAY-2 kept failing
It was full of setbacks
The managers all worried
Their stock would collapse

"Just give me time and resources
Heck even cut my pay!"
"But you're getting old" they said
Even if your name's Cray"

There was a New Kid on the Block
No not Donnie or Joey 
Steve Chen! they all hailed
And his head kept on growing

He redesigned the CRAY-1
Built X-MP before long
Whose design was so good
They even used it for TRON

CHORUS

But even Chen needed capital
And the company ran low
So when it came time for budgets
Chen, out you go

The CRAY-2 rolled out
Too many years too late
So when he started on 3
They all sighed "not another wait"

So once more he packed up 
Threw his bags on his shoudler
Gathered a few friends
And headed out to Boulder

CRAY-3 was finished
But so was the Cold War
One day when they came to work
They couldn't open the door

CHORUS

His mind never stopped churning
But then one tragic day
The world mourned the loss
Of the great Seymour Cray

The man is more than a legend
Supercomputing's great father
All he needed was blank sheet
A pencil, and some solder