text: Through the much of the 1980’s and early 1990’s, Cambridge-based Thinking Machines was ahead of its time. As innovators in parallel computing, they developed a massive, 65,536 processor supercomputer known the Connection Machine. Visually, it made Cray’s distinctive look seem like a piece of outdated furniture, and was even stunning enough to star as the “impressive blinky-light server” in Jurassic Park.
  Of course, that’s just about all it was good for. The Connection Machine was an AI researcher’s dream that no AI research lab could afford. Its inability to run FORTRAN – and every other programming language aside from a specialized Lisp dialect – made it pretty much useless for business and scientific purposes. Its baffling inability to even do floating-point operations mostly guaranteed that no one would buy it. But, hey – who needs customers when there’s lots of money from daddy!
  In this case, “daddy” was DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), and not only provided Thinking Machines with millions of dollars in funding, but brokered and subsidized many of the Connection Machine sales. As more money poured in, even more money poured out. CEO Sheryl Handler – whose background included interior design, landscape architecture, city planning, and third-world resource planning – built a lavish office that included huge open spaces, an enormous marble archway, and even a plush cafeteria staffed with its very own gourmet chef.
  While all of this so far is chronicled in Inc. Magazine’s 1995 article, The Rise and Fall of Thinking Machines, reader Andrew Garland wrote in to share his own experience with Thinking Machines. During their heyday, he interviewed for a software engineer position.