MAC-CUBE, the Macintosh-based hypercube

Abstract

The MAC-CUBE is a Macintosh-based hypercube. It uses AppleTalk hardware and software as the medium for the nodal connections. At the physical level AppleTalk has a bus topology. Hypercube connectivity is emulated on the AppleTalk local area network while the hypercube communication protocol is integrated in the AppleTalk software. Available for MAC-CUBE is the Crystalline Operating System III (CrOS III.) MAC-CUBE provides a programming environment similar to any other hypercube systems running CrOS III. It allows inexpensive hands-on experience with a concurrent machine. Data can be displayed on graphics monitor and/or stored locally at each node. In addition to the low cost, these capabilities of the Mac-Cube makes it an indispensable instructional and development tool for parallel processing. Some application programs which are taken from the book Solving Problems on Concurrent Processors [Fox 88] have been implemented with graphics enhancement on Mac-Cube. The applications are solving the Mandelbrot set in the complex plane, and solving a 2-dimensional Laplace equation using finite difference.

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