Deasil/widdershins

[Guy Steele <cbmvax!uunet!THINK.COM!cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu!gls>]

The terminology deasil/widdershins was used within Thinking Machines
Corporation in describing an aspect of its hypercube network in the
Connection Machine model CM-1.  The cabinet consisted of eight
smaller cubes forming one large cube.  For some purposes one must
regard them as connected in a ring, with each subcube connected to
two adjacent subcubes.  If you trace the subcubes in order around the
ring, you hit them in a pattern most easily described as the seam on
a baseball.  We used "deasil" and "widdershins" to describe the two
directions around this contorted ring.