The role of representation in computer architecture

There are two basic components to an effective computer architecture: the user representation and the base technology. The architecture is a compromise between the two. Current user representations, at least in the scientific arena, have been developed over a period of time before the introduction of large scale computing. Indeed, the form of large scale computers has been largely determined by existing functional mathematical representations. If we wish to make significant advances in the effectiveness of our base technology-our computer hardware-we must reconsider the user representation. An alternative proposal is to solve problems by particle simulation rather than the traditional continuous model using global memory. Particle simulation models can be solved by cellular computers which closely match the 3 dimensional distributed computing models with structured local interconnection available in optical technology.