01
 
02
 
03
 
04
 
05
 
06
 
07
 
08
 
09
 
10
 
11
 
12
 
13

The Connection Machine

Connection Machine CM-1 in operation

In the full 65,535 processor version, the CM-1 had 16 1-bit processors per processor chip, for a total of 4,096 processor chips -- each with an LED. Besides being visually impressive, CM-1 programmers could use these lights to analyze the operation of their programs.

The Connection Machine

Parallel processing relies on making connections: coordinating multiple processors for a single task. Our brains do that too. Danny Hillis at MIT based his CM-1 on that human model.

Hillis’s novel architecture featured up to 65,536 simple single-bit processors interconnected in a 12-dimensional hypercube. Its applications included real-time stock market trading, artificial intelligence, fluid dynamics, and more.

Connection Machine architect Danny Hillis at Thinking Machines Corporation

Hillis attracted a talented group of people to TMC, including a stint by world-famous physicist Richard Feynman.

View Artifact Detail
1 2 3
CM-1

Danny Hillis co-founded Thinking Machines Corporation in 1982 to build massively parallel computers. Like the ILLIAC IV 15 years earlier, the CM-1 was a SIMD (single instruction, multiple data) supercomputer, useful only for certain problems. The company produced four more designs before declaring bankruptcy in 1994.

View Artifact Detail
Connection Machine CM-1 heat flow study

As in all supercomputers, removing the heat generated by closely-packed electronic circuitry posed a key challenge.

View Artifact Detail
Keywords
14
 
15
 
16