The Connection Machine CM-2


The final design, used for both the CM-1 and its faster successor, the CM-2, was a massive, 5 feet tall cube formed in turn of smaller cubes, representing the 12-dimensional hypercube structure of the network that connected the processors together.

This hard geometric object, black, the non-color of sheer, static mass, was transparent, filled with a soft,constantly changing cloud of lights from the processor chips, red, the color of life and energy. It was the archetype of an electronic brain, a living, thinking machine.

Image is © Thinking Machines Corporation, 1987. Photo: Steve Grohe.

Text: © Tamiko Thiel

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