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 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