Abstract

Why have one 16-bit processor when you can have 16 1-bit processors? This question led Danny Hillis to his design of the Connection Machine in the 1980s. The result was a massively parallel computer that required a different kind of thinking to program effectively. In this talk, I will highlight some of the interesting aspects of the Connection Machine architecture, introduce Connection Machine Lisp, and finally make some comparisons to modern GPU architectures.