Considerations for programming a heatbug simulator on parallel computers: How to divide the program amongst several computers? I decided to devote each computer to a section of the 2D grid. I separated the grid into strips of approximately even size (+or-1). Then each section also includes edge strips that i would use to interact to the grid from the other computer that is next to it. By using strips instead of square cells per processor this should match more closely with the internal memory layout of arrays used on each processor and should be a little faster to copy and access. The extra strips on the subgrids that overlap each other are a little sloppy.