Supertek Computers

{{Short description|American computer company}}

{{Infobox company

| name=Supertek Computers Inc.

| logo=

| founder=Mike Fung

| founded={{start date and age|1985}}

| defunct={{end date and age|1990}}

| fate=Acquired by Cray

| products=Supertek S-1

| industry=Computer

| type=Public

}}

Supertek Computers Inc. was a computer company founded in Santa Clara, California in 1985 by Mike Fung, an ex-Hewlett-Packard project manager, with the aim of designing and selling low-cost minisupercomputers compatible with those from Cray Research.{{cite journal | last=Clark | first=Don | date=April 27, 1989 | url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/302355825/ | title=Supertek's Minisupercomputer Clone | journal=San Francisco Chronicle | publisher=Chronicle Publishing Company | page=C3 | via=ProQuest}}

Its first product was the Supertek S-1, a compact, air-cooled, CMOS clone of the Cray X-MP vector processor supercomputer running the CTSS (Cray Time Sharing System) operating system, and later a version of Unix. This was launched in 1989; although Supertek had raised US$21.4 million in venture capital, only $5 million of this was needed to develop the S-1. Only ten units were sold before Supertek was acquired by Cray Research in 1990.{{cite journal | last=Fisher | first=Lawrence M. | date=March 30, 1990 | url=http://www.nytimes.com/1990/03/30/business/cray-in-deal-to-acquire-supertek.html | title=Cray in Deal To Acquire Supertek | journal=The New York Times | page=D4 | archiveurl=https://archive.today/20130104065609/http://www.nytimes.com/1990/03/30/business/cray-in-deal-to-acquire-supertek.html | archivedate=January 4, 2013}} The S-1 was subsequently sold for a brief time by Cray as the Cray XMS.{{cite journal | last=Davis | first=Dudght | date=June 15, 1991 | url=https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A10903814/GPS?sid=wikipedia | title=Cray Research Inc. | journal=Datamation | publisher= Reed Business Information | volume=37 | issue=12 | page=74 | via=Gale}}

At the time of the acquisition the Supertek S-2, a clone of the Cray Y-MP, was under development. This was eventually launched as the Cray Y-MP EL in 1992.{{cite book | editor-last=Trew | editor-first=Arthur | editor2=Greg Wilson | date=2012 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HZzeBwAAQBAJ | title=Past, Present, Parallel: A Survey of Available Parallel Computer Systems | publisher=Springer London | page=250 | isbn=9781447118428 | via=Google Books}}{{cite web | date=2020 | url=https://www.ricomputermuseum.org/collections-gallery/equipment/cray-research-el-98 | title=Cray Research EL-98 | publisher=Rhode Island Computer Museum | archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20221207033607/https://www.ricomputermuseum.org/collections-gallery/equipment/cray-research-el-98 | archivedate=December 7, 2022}}