February 2, 2026
Nerd drip, dryer drama
The Connection Machine CM-1 "Feynman" T-shirt
The supercomputer shirt is back — fans gush LEDs, argue dryers, and flex Feynman
TLDR: An iconic CM‑1 “Feynman” T‑shirt — the logo that literally inspired the supercomputer’s look — is back in the spotlight. Fans are nostalgic over its movie‑star LEDs, swapping Feynman links, and waging a practical war over sizing and shrinkage, proving even genius gear meets laundry reality.
A T-shirt so iconic a supercomputer was designed to match it? That’s the Connection Machine CM‑1 “Feynman” tee, and the internet is losing it. The designer says the logo came first in 1983, the machine came second — making it possibly the only supercomputer built after a shirt. Cue nostalgia: commenters are swooning over the CM’s sci‑fi looks and those blinking red lights, with one fan shouting out its Jurassic Park cameo and dropping receipts like the Wikipedia page.
Then came the nerdfight: what did those LEDs actually do? The thread veered into explainers, with folks noting the red blinkers showed processor status, while the logo’s gold “boxes” represent a 12‑step hardware network — explained in toddler terms as: lots of little computers, all talking fast. The Feynman factor (yes, that Nobel Prize physicist) had everyone linking reading lists like this Long Now piece and flexing brainy cred. Meanwhile, the real drama is domestic: one buyer confessed their shirt was too big and vanished into a “commemorative tee drawer,” while another issued a PSA that it shrinks in the dryer. Team Hang‑Dry vs. Dryer Max is officially on. Bonus art-world clout: a CM‑2 landed in MoMA in 2016. For the purists, the “classic” look is black tee, gold cube network, red “pom‑poms” — the same vibe Apple immortalized when Feynman wore it in the “Think Different” ad. Science merch with main‑character energy.
Key Points
- •The CM-1 t-shirt logo was designed in 1983 before the CM-1’s hardware design, which was then made to match the logo.
- •Apple popularized the t-shirt by featuring Richard Feynman wearing it in the 1990s “Think different” campaign.
- •The logo’s geometric boxes depict a 12-dimensional “cube of cubes” hardware network connecting chips in up to 12 steps.
- •Richard Feynman proposed the network structure; the representation can be expanded to infinite dimensions.
- •MoMA New York acquired a CM-2 in 2016; the classic t-shirt colors are black, yellow-gold network, and red pom-poms.