The commutativity of the reduction operator would be important if there were a master core distributing work to several processors, since then the results could arrive back to the master processor in any order.
2.
I / O devices were connected to the system via the Q-Bus, whose 22-bit address space was mapped onto the 24-bit memory address space of the Firefly by using mapping registers controlled by the master processor.
3.
On a real road, these computers will not only control a car's movements, they will also keep in touch, via a radio transceiver, with a master processor that is supposed to keep track of the position and speed of every vehicle in the platoon.