THE THINKING MACHINES STORY
Thinking Machines Corporation, founded in 1983 by Danny Hillis, pioneered massively parallel supercomputing with their Connection Machine series. Their innovative architecture and distinctive design made them a symbol of the AI revolution in the 1980s.
CONNECTION MACHINE 1 (1985)
The first massively parallel supercomputer, featuring 65,536 simple processors and a distinctive cube design.
- 65,536 processors
- Massively parallel architecture
- Used in AI research
- Iconic cube design
CONNECTION MACHINE 2 (1987)
An improved version with up to 65,536 processors and enhanced performance for AI applications.
- Up to 65,536 processors
- 5 GFLOPS peak performance
- Used in pattern recognition
- Improved hypercube network
CONNECTION MACHINE 5 (1991)
The final and most powerful model, featuring up to 1 million processors and advanced AI capabilities.
- Up to 1 million processors
- 65 GFLOPS peak performance
- Used in data mining
- Advanced AI applications