Path: utzoo!yunexus!geac!syntron!jtsv16!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!mailrus!ukma!gatech!hubcap!khb
From: khb@Sun.COM (Keith Bierman - Sun Tactical Engineering)
Newsgroups: comp.parallel
Subject: Re: Hmm!
Keywords: HyperCube, Parallel Connection Schemes
Message-ID: <3357@hubcap.UUCP>
Date: 27 Oct 88 15:33:34 GMT
Article-I.D.: hubcap.3357
Sender: fpst@hubcap.UUCP
Lines: 29
Approved: parallel@hubcap.clemson.edu

In article <3355@hubcap.UUCP> mschedlb@hawk.ulowell.edu (Martin Schedlbauer) writes:
>>  Is the Connection Machiene by ThinkingMachines Inc. a hypercube?
>No it isn't. 

I don't have a CM manual any more, but I recall reading about the
actual hardware linkage....and it IS a hypercube. This fact is hidden
by the software.


>A hypercube is an architecture, in which nodes are connected to
>their Gray-Code neighbours. 

True.

>Although, the new iPSC/2 uses a message routine
>scheme called 'wormhole principle' where it is almost unimportant who's 
>connected to whom, i.e. sending a message to a node which is not your neighbor
>takes only less than 2% longer than sending it to your neighbor (routine is
>done in hardware, not the O.S.) So, in effect the hypercube becomes a 'flat'
>interconnection schemes (not multidimensional 'cubes'.)

CalTech / JPL strike again. This is also employed by the AMETEK cube
and was scheduled (I was at a design meeting about 3 years back) for
the Mark III-e JPL cube. JPL called it the hyperswitch.




Keith H. Bierman
It's Not My Fault ---- I Voted for Bill & Opus