Large scale simulations of lattice QCD thermodynamics on Columbia Parallel Supercomputers

The Columbia Parallel Supercomputer project aims at the construction of a parallel processing, multi-gigaflop computer optimized for numerical simulations of lattice QCD. The project has three stages; 16-node, 1/4GF machine completed in April 1985, 64-node, 1GF machine completed in August 1987, and 256-node, 16GF machine now under construction. The machines all share a common architecture; a two dimensional torus formed from a rectangular array of N1 x N2 independent and identical processors. A processor is capable of operating in a multi-instruction multi-data mode, except for periods of synchronous interprocessor communication with its four nearest neighbors. Here the thermodynamics simulations on the two working machines are reported. (orig./HSI)