Massively parallel computer A Connection Machine CM a massively parallel computer MPC made by the Thinking Machines Corporation MPCs use many individual nodes networked together allowing simultanoeus processing of large volumes of data In the CM up to nodes are used Each node consists of a SPARC chip four vector processors for highspeed computations and a memory of Mb megabytes When all of these nodes are networked together in the CM the computer has a theoretical speed eight times faster than the most powerful conventional computers MPCs may be used in the mathematics of climate modelling Photo graphed at Los Alamos National Laboratory USA