Celerity Computing
| Company type | Public |
|---|---|
| Industry | Computer hardware |
| Founded | May 1983 |
| Founder | Steve Vallender, Nick Aneshansley, Andrew McCroklin |
| Defunct | September 1988 |
| Fate | Acquired by Floating Point Systems |
| Headquarters | San Diego , United States |
| Products | Unix-based minisupercomputer systems (C1200 Personal Workstation, C1230, C1260, Celerity 6000) |
Celerity Computing, Inc. operated as a publicly listed supplier of Unix-based minisupercomputer systems, with its headquarters located in San Diego, California. Established in May 1983 by former NCR Corporation staff members Steve Vallender, Nick Aneshansley, and Andrew McCroklin, the company concentrated on creating advanced computing solutions.[1]
In November 1984, Celerity introduced its initial offering, the C1200 Personal Workstation. This product incorporated the ACCEL RISC design derived from the NCR/32 32-bit processor and included a color display capable of resolutions up to 1280x1024 pixels. Later versions such as the C1230 and C1260 followed; notably, the C1260 featured dual processors and was engineered to support multi-user operations. These machines operated on a BSD 4.2 Unix system enhanced with components from System V Release 2.[2]
To penetrate the minisupercomputer sector, Celerity developed the Celerity 6000, which employed ACCEL architecture realized through ECL technology supplied by Bipolar Integrated Technology. This platform ran at a clock speed of 33 MHz and accommodated up to eight processors that could be configured either as scalar or vector processors.[3] Financial challenges encountered during this phase resulted in Celerity’s acquisition by Floating Point Systems in September 1988. The completed Celerity 6000 was subsequently marketed under the name FPS Model 500 minisupercomputer.[4]
After the acquisition, ownership of Celerity’s assets changed hands multiple times: Floating Point Systems was purchased by Cray in 1991; Cray itself was acquired by Silicon Graphics in 1996; and later that year, Silicon Graphics sold its Cray Business Systems Division to Sun Microsystems. Throughout these transitions, key engineers from Celerity continued their work and ultimately became part of Sun Microsystems’ Enterprise Systems Products (ESP) division.[1]