Thinking Machines, What Happened To The Connection Machine Company

In June 1993 the first TOP500 list of the world’s fastest computers was published. The top four machines on it were all built by the same company, and so were five of the top ten. Fourteen months later that company filed for bankruptcy protection. Thinking Machines Corporation built one of the most striking computers anyone has made, a black cube filled with blinking red lights that went into museums and into Jurassic Park. It employed Richard Feynman, on and off, for five years. It was, briefly, the fastest thing in computing. And it never really had a market, which is the whole story. What follows is assembled from federal audit reports, bankruptcy filings, the company’s own hardware manuals and the recollections of the people who were there. Thinking Machines was privately held and never filed public accounts, so the revenue and profit figures below are the company’s own statements as reported at the time and cannot be checked against an audited filing. Figures taken from the federal audit are identified as such. Thinking Machines was founded in May 1983 and set up in an old mansion outside Boston, the Robert Treat Paine estate in Waltham. The architect was Danny Hillis,…