70's computers

[Steven M Jones]

On 10/29/2018 05:28, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote:
> 
> Does anyone know why they didn't catch on? Was it something like 'commodity
> 'ordinary' processors became so cheap one could build large parallel machines
> out of them, and each node had a lot more computing capability', or something
> like that?

My best recollection as a distant observer, for the neural/cognitive 
modeling it was conceived for, there weren't enough labs with enough 
grant money to support the company. And as part of the "general" 
supercomputer segment there were limited problems you could address with 
the original 1-bit CPU model, and producing code for it was a big 
challenge coming from more traditional systems.

A lot of that may have been alleviated with the later designs built on 
mainstream (SPARC, Alpha) CPUs, but by then I think there were more 
alternatives chasing those dollars. And the company's, er, management 
issues were not helping.

Some links for further reading:

"Rise and Fall of Thinking Machines" - 
https://www.inc.com/magazine/19950915/2622.html

MIT CSAIL "Final Report" - 
http://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.972/TMC%20Corp.html


> I wonder how many CM's are still in existence at this point?

That's an interesting question. The same challenges for other big iron 
come into play, including critical dependence on a FEP from Symbolics, 
DEC, Sun, HP, etc.

--S.