I don't know much about dataTable, but it looks like you can use the toJSON function in the Backbone collection for your aaData value.
Here is an example
$('table').dataTable({ "aaData": yourCollection.toJSON(), "aoColumns": [ { "sTitle": "Engine", "mDataProp": "engine" }, { "sTitle": "Browser", "mDataProp": "browser" }, { "sTitle": "Platform", "mDataProp": "platform" }, { "sTitle": "Version", "mDataProp": "version" }, { "sTitle": "Grade", "mDataProp": "grade" } ] });
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