Editing Thinking Machines Corporation (section)

==Supercomputer products==
On the hardware side, Thinking Machines produced several [[Connection Machine]] models (in chronological order): the CM-1, CM-2, CM-200, CM-5, and CM-5E.  The CM-1 and 2 came first in models with 64K (65,536) [[Bit-serial architecture|bit-serial]] processors (16 processors per chip) and later, the smaller 16K and 4K configurations.  The Connection Machine was programmed in a variety of specialized [[programming language]]s, including [[*Lisp]] and CM Lisp (derived from [[Common Lisp]]), [[C*]] (derived by Thinking Machines from [[C (programming language)|C]]), and CM [[Fortran]]. These languages used [[Proprietary software|proprietary]] [[compiler]]s to translate code into the parallel [[instruction set]] of the Connection Machine.  The CM-1 through CM-200 were examples of ''single instruction, multiple data'' ([[Single instruction, multiple data|SIMD]]) architecture using a [[Hypercube_internetwork_topology|hypercube interconnect]] to reduce hop-count and latency, while the later CM-5 and CM-5E were ''multiple instruction, multiple data'' ([[Multiple instruction, multiple data|MIMD]]) that combined commodity [[SPARC]] processors and proprietary vector processors in a ''[[fat tree]]'' [[computer network]].

All Connection Machine models required a serial front-end processor, which was most often a [[Sun Microsystems]] workstation, but on early models could also be a [[Digital Equipment Corporation]] (DEC) [[VAX]] [[minicomputer]] or [[Symbolics]] [[Lisp machine]].

Thinking Machines also introduced an early commercial ''redundant array of independent disks'' ([[RAID]]) 2 disk array, the [[DataVault]], circa 1988.<ref>{{cite patent |country=US |number=4,899,342 |status= |title=Method and Apparatus for Operating Multi-unit Array of Memories |pubdate= |gdate= |fdate=1988-02-01 |pridate= |inventor= |invent1= |invent2= |assign1= |assign2= |class= |url=}}</ref>

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|File:Connection Machine CM-1 (1985) - Computer History Museum (2007-11-10 22.57.53 by Carlo Nardone).jpg|Thinking Machines CM-1 at [[Computer History Museum]]. See also a [[:File:Connection Machine CM-1 (detail) - Computer Museum (2007-11-10 22.58.06 by Carlo Nardone).jpg|detailed photo]].
|File:Thinking machines cm2.jpg|Thinking Machines CM-2 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. One of the face plates is partly removed to show the circuit boards inside.
|File:Thinking Machines Connection Machine CM-5 Frostburg 2.jpg|Thinking Machines [[CM-5]] ''[[FROSTBURG]]'' at the [[National Cryptologic Museum]].
|File:Thinking Machines CM200-IMG 7294.jpg|Thinking Machines CM-200 at the Bolo Computer Museum at the [[École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne]] (EPFL), [[Lausanne]].
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{{Gallery
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|File:Connection Machine CM-2 and DataVault at Computer Museum of America.webp|CM-2 at [[Mimms Museum of Technology and Art]]
|File:MoMA Exhibition, CM-2 (38801396912) (clip1).jpg|CM-2 at the [[Museum of Modern Art]] (MoMA), NYC.
|File:Connection Machine CM-5 (FROSTBERG) at National Cryptologic Museum (2) edit.jpg|CM-5 at the [[National Cryptologic Museum]]
|Thinking Machines CM200-IMG 7294 (bright).jpg|Single cube of CM200.<br/>(On the full configuration, it consists of 8 cubes)
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