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The Connection Machine CM-1/CM-2

 


CM-2a, DataVault and CM-2, plus monitors showing applications

 

 

 


Karl Sims' Genetic Images art installation running on a CM-2, Centre Pompidou,
Paris, 1993. (Photo ©Karl Sims.) Karl was awarded a McArthur Fellowship Award and
two Ars Electronica Golden Nicas for his artwork using the CM-2 and CM-5
.

 

 

 


CM-2 and DataVault mass storage device

 

 

 

CM-1
CM-1

 

 

 

CM-1
CM-1 and its 128 processor boards

 


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 8 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.

 


Images (except where noted) © Thinking Machines Corporation, 1986-1987. Photos: Steve Grohe.

Text: © Tamiko Thiel

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