length were accounted for. When asked what kind of CAD tools he used for the Cray-1, Cray said that he liked #3 pencils with 8-1/2" x 11" quadrille paper pads. Cray recommended using the backs of the pages so that the lines were not so dominant. Personal life Cray avoided publicity, and there are a number of unusual tales about his life away from work, termed "Rollwagenisms", from then-CEO of Cray Research, John A. Rollwagen. He enjoyed skiing, windsurfing, tennis, and other sports. Another favorite pastime was digging a tunnel under his home; he attributed the secret of his success to "visits by elves" while he worked in the tunnel: "While I'm digging in the tunnel, the elves will often come to me with solutions to my problem." One story has it that when Cray was asked by management to provide detailed one-year and five-year plans for his next machine, he simply wrote, "Five-year goal: Build the biggest computer in the world. One year goal: One-fifth of the above." And another time, when expected to write a multi-page detailed status report for the company executives, Cray's two sentence report read: "Activity is progressing satisfactorily as outlined under the June plan. There have been no significant changes or deviations from the June plan." Cray died on October 5, 1996, two weeks after his automobile was struck on the highway and rolled several times. The IEEE Computer Society's Seymour Cray Computer Engineering Award, established in late 1997, recognizes innovative contributions to high performance computing systems exemplifying Cray's creative spirit. Cray married Verene Voll in 1947. They had known each other since childhood. She was the daughter of a Methodist minister, just as was Cray's mother, and Verene worked as a nutritionist. They had three children and divorced around 1978. He later married Geri Harrand and had one son and two daughters. See also Charles Babbage Institute Cray-3/SSS John Vincent Atanasoff Notes References Discussion topics include Control Data Corporation, CDC 1604, CDC 6600, CDC 7600, CDC 8600, CDC STAR-100 and Seymour Cray. External links Seymour Cray Oral History An Imaginary Tour of a Biological Computer (Why Computer Professionals and Molecular Biologists Should Start Collaborating): Remarks of Seymour Cray to the Shannon Center for Advanced Studies, University of Virginia, May 30, 1996 1925 births 1996 deaths People from Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin 20th-century American inventors American electrical engineers American technology company founders Computer designers Cray