The Spanish Museum of Computing History has completed an 18-month project to build a replica of the Cray-1 supercomputer using 30 vintage Mac Mini units. The build includes 25 units with dual-core Intel Core i5 processors and 5 units with quad-core Core i7 processors, all released between 2012 and 2014.
The system features 70 cores and achieved a peak performance of 1.5 teraflops, which is approximately 9,375 times faster than the original Cray-1. Following a hardware failure of one quad-core unit during testing, the performance dropped to 1.3 teraflops. The replica utilizes passive cooling, unlike the original, which required 20-ton refrigeration compressors.
The replica runs on macOS Mojave and uses the Message Passing Interface to distribute instructions across the Mac Mini cluster. A custom retro-style terminal was built to allow museum visitors to observe the system performing matrix multiplication tasks.
The museum team plans to launch a fundraising campaign to acquire 70 to 80 Mac Mini units equipped with M4 chips. The objective of this future project is to secure a position in the TOP500 list of the world's most powerful supercomputers.
