FROSTBURG was a Connection Machine

Connection Machine

The Connection Machine was a series of supercomputers that grew out of Danny Hillis' research in the early 1980s at MIT on alternatives to the traditional von Neumann architecture of computation...

 5 (CM-5) supercomputer

Supercomputer

A supercomputer is a computer at the frontline of current processing capacity, particularly speed of calculation.Supercomputers are used for highly calculation-intensive tasks such as problems including quantum physics, weather forecasting, climate research, molecular modeling A supercomputer is a...

 used by the US National Security Agency

National Security Agency

The National Security Agency/Central Security Service is a cryptologic intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the collection and analysis of foreign communications and foreign signals intelligence, as well as protecting U.S...

 (NSA) to perform higher-level mathematical calculations. The CM-5 was built by the Thinking Machines Corporation, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...

, at a cost of US$25 million. The system was installed at NSA in 1991, and operated until 1997. It was the first massively parallel processing computer

Parallel computing

Parallel computing is a form of computation in which many calculations are carried out simultaneously, operating on the principle that large problems can often be divided into smaller ones, which are then solved concurrently . There are several different forms of parallel computing: bit-level,...

 bought by NSA, originally containing 256 processing nodes. The system was upgraded in 1993 with an additional 256 nodes, for a total of 512 nodes. The system had a total of 500 billion 32-bit words (~2 terabytes) of storage, 2.5 billion words (~10 gigabytes) of memory

Computer memory

In computing, memory refers to the physical devices used to store programs or data on a temporary or permanent basis for use in a computer or other digital electronic device. The term primary memory is used for the information in physical systems which are fast In computing, memory refers to the...

, and could perform at a theoretical maximum 65.5 gigaflops. The operating system CMOst was based on UNIX

Unix

Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...

, but optimized for parallel processing.

FROSTBURG is now on display at the National Cryptologic Museum

National Cryptologic Museum

The National Cryptologic Museum is an American museum of cryptologic history that is affiliated with the National Security Agency . The first public museum in the U.S. Intelligence Community, NCM is located in the former Colony Seven Motel, just two blocks from the NSA headquarters at Fort...

.

Sources

• Caption for FROSTBURG display in the National Cryptologic Museum, 2005; see photograph.

External links

• Another photograph of FROSTBURG by Declan McCullagh
  Declan McCullagh
  Declan McCullagh is an American journalist and columnist for CBSNews.com. He specializes in computer security and privacy issues. He is notable, among other things, for his early involvement with the media interpretation of U.S...