The most similar real world example that works like this is the GA144. 144 cores are laid out in a grid, and you pass data from one core to another by sending i

The most similar real world example that works like this is the GA144. 144 cores are laid out in a grid, and you pass data from one core to another by sending it "north", "south", "east" or "west". It's a puzzle game, though, and probably aims less at being a practical teaching tool than a set of novel and obscure problems. If it teaches anything it'd be approaching odd problems in general, just like spacechem did.