The Connection Machine CM-1 "Feynman" T-shirt

yesbabyyes an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Nice, ordered.

For fans of computing history and/or Feynman, this article about his time with, and contributions to, Thinking Machines and the Connection Machine is a great read!

https://longnow.org/ideas/richard-feynman-and-the-connection...

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tvarghese7 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I thought of N-Cube machines when I saw it, CM didn't even occur to me.

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boole1854 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I ordered one of these a while back. Be warned that it will shrink if put in the dryer.

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mikestorrent 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Bought one but it was too big... into the drawer of commemorative t's it goes

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hettygreen 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What were the LED's indicating?

	▲	monocasa an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Depended on what was running. As a developer you had explicit access to them, so you could use them for debugging. A lot of times, they were just running an RNG to look cool though.
	▲	anjel an hour ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Blinkenlights
	▲	wanderingjew an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		There is no documentation of what the LEDs were _actually_ doing. There are descriptions, like 'Random and Pleasing is an LFSR', but no actual information that maps to actual pixel coordinates spaced in time. Nearly zero code. I'm saying this because I need this information, and the fastest way to get information is to state that it's impossible or doesn't exist.

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echelon 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The Connection Machine series (which was featured in Jurassic Park) have the most beautiful LED panels.

Reposting some links from a recent Jurassic Park thread -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connection_Machine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4kBRC2co7Y&t=65s (Jurassic Park)

The LED panel is gorgeous:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=6Ko4qBkEcBM (render)

A lot of people have replicated or restored these:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=qm6w57ZcJZQ

https://www.housedillon.com/posts/resurrected-led-panels/

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tvarghese7 an hour ago | parent [-]

Worked on the CM-1 and CM2. I felt they were awful buggy. At one point they asked if they could use my code to run as a diagnostic, it would break the log() function on occasion.

The Cray fluorinert fountains were way cooler :)

	▲	echelon an hour ago \| parent [-]
		This is so cool to read, thank you for sharing!