Overview: The Rise of Linux

The transition from vector computers to Massively Parallel Processors (MPPs) in the late 1980s and the early 1990s produced a plethora of system manufacturers, for example, Alliant, BBN Butterfly, Convex, Intel, Kendall Square Research (KSR), MasPar, Meiko, nCube, Parsytec, Sequent, Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI), Supertek, SUPRENUM Supercomputer GmbH, Tera Computer Corp., and Thinking Machines Corp. (TMC). An article based on TOP500 results up to that time summarizes the market trends very clearly (Strohmaier et al. 2019). By the end of the decade, all but a few had disappeared. They went bankrupt, got bought, merged, or just stopped making supercomputers.

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