frerichs@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (David J Frerichs) (03/19/91)
The Connection Machine and I/O... The CM2 overcomes I/O problems in the same way it overcomes processing problems: parallelism. The main memory bank or data vault of the CM2 consists of 39 hard drives for a total of 10Gbytes of data expandable to 20Gbytes. A 32bit word from the processor array (which, BTW, is in a 12d hypercube structure) is sent to the data vault with one bit per drive and 7 error correction bits to 7 other drives. This results in an amazing capability. During the demo I was at, the operator opened up the vault while the CM2 was doing some intensive number crunching, and pulled a cable off one of the drives! The CM2 wasn't even phased... it just kept going as if nothing happened. Now that is a computer built to last. For graphics, the CM2 has a special frame buffer I/O module that supports 40Mbyte/sec transfer rates. That translates to 13 24bit color megapel pictures per second... quite enough for continuous movement. (Although, that is the peak rate, nominal operations would cut it down a couple frames per second.) The thing that impresses me the most about the Connection Machine 2 is its durability. Yeah, it needs to be in an air-conditioned room, but that is the extent of it's environmental suseptability. The guy who was showing it also opened it up for us to take a look at it innards (that split in the middle of the blocks full of lights swings open for full access). He joked that they kept a keg of beer in the back section with the doors open. Compared to the CRAY, which would cease to run if it weren't cooled with cryogenic fluid and kept in a perfect, near clean room environment, the CM2 is an iron-man. [dfRERICHS University of Illinois, Urbana Designing VR systems that work... Dept. of Computer Engineering Networked VR. IEEE/SigGraph _ _ _ frerichs@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu _/_\__/_\__/_\_ frerichs@well.sf.ca.us \_/ \_/ \_/ ]