[HN Gopher] A computer that expands your vision by looking at th...
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       A computer that expands your vision by looking at the whole problem
       at once
        
       Author : gone35
       Score  : 62 points
       Date   : 2022-10-17 03:35 UTC (19 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.computerhistory.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.computerhistory.org)
        
       | ergonaught wrote:
       | For the rabbit hole divers:
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connection_Machine
        
       | codeflo wrote:
       | Needs (1986) in the title. But if you add references to deep
       | learning and metaverse, replace the font with Helvetica, and add
       | a few flatly shaded hand-drawings of a cute animal mascot, this
       | could actually be printed today.
        
       | nla wrote:
       | Whatever happened to massive parallelism anyway? SMP seems to
       | have killed it, but curious what you guys think?
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | omneity wrote:
       | Is this the machine that Richard Feynman was working on?
       | 
       | I believe he was hired by TMC to work on some topological
       | problems for a massively parallel computer around a similar time.
        
         | lifeisstillgood wrote:
         | https://longnow.org/essays/richard-feynman-connection-machin...
         | 
         | >>> We were arguing about what the name of the company should
         | be when Richard walked in, saluted, and said, "Richard Feynman
         | reporting for duty. OK, boss, what's my assignment?" The
         | assembled group of not-quite-graduated MIT students was
         | astounded.
         | 
         | After a hurried private discussion ("I don't know, you hired
         | him..."), we ...
        
           | omneity wrote:
           | Fascinating! Thank you for the reference. The Connecting
           | Machine looks like a nerd dream. Massively parallel with a
           | high level language and API. I believe we can see Symbolics
           | OS in the OP PDF.
           | 
           | I wonder what went wrong with the vision for it not to come
           | to fruition. Hopefully not just a "boring" technological
           | limitation.
        
       | stuart78 wrote:
       | I love a matrix of red flashing dots, but did these serve a real
       | purpose on machines like this? Feels quite obtuse as a means of
       | delivering feedback. Especially since a machine like this could
       | drive a comparatively information-dense CRT display.
        
         | helf wrote:
         | It was to look impressive tbh. I love these units.
         | 
         | The LEDs, iirc, were tied to the processors being active or
         | accessing memory or something. I forget exactly what. It wasn't
         | really for information purposes but for looking impressive.
         | 
         | And impressive it is. There's one at a museum in GA that is
         | wired up to randomly blink the LEDs and it's the best thing
         | ever lol
        
         | helf wrote:
         | According to Wikipedia:
         | 
         | " The panels were used to check the usage of the processing
         | nodes, and to run diagnostics."
        
       | ultra_nick wrote:
       | Were they building a FPGA, DPU, or graph processing unit?
       | 
       | They knew a lot more about computing than I expected.
        
       | lifeisstillgood wrote:
       | It is however nice to see that the overly inflated claims of each
       | new piece of tech is not a modern disease
       | 
       | (by modern of course I mean the past six months)
        
       | otikik wrote:
       | The marketing department was given free reign on this one.
        
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       (page generated 2022-10-17 23:02 UTC)