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I remember being fascinated how cool supercomputers looked when I was getting into computers in the mid 90s. The Connection Machine supercomputers come into mind. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connection_Machine
I loved how the Crays looked. I have a picture of myself standing in the middle of a Cray 2, it is one of the coolest pictures I have.
As an enthusiast of old mainframes and the like, I found this read to be very enjoyable. Thank you for sharing!
This is a nice photo gallery, but as a history of supercomputers its pretty shallow.
Agreed, it is a good "starter" but not an in-depth examination of the history of super computers.
"Throughout history, Intel has occasionally tried to launch chips based on a non-x86 architecture, usually without success. In 1989 it released the i860 [...]"

The iAPX 432 was an earlier Intel miss. Much ballyhooed in the trade press for a couple of years. Supposed to run Ada programs efficiently, or something.

(Just noticed that lowercase 'i' there - in the 1980s, it meant an Intel chip, most famously the i8086.)

Also, the CDC 6600 probably deserves whatever press it gets. Though I think IBM sold a lot more 360s.