The Star 910/VP as a scientific computer in Sun networks

A network of Sun workstations implemented in the SPARC architecture provides a basis for convenient sharing of scientific computing results, both as procedures and data, through strict adherence to accepted standards. The purpose of the Star 910/VP is to provide a compatible extension of the SPARC architecture so that large-scale scientific computing can be made available as a facility of such networks. The second SPARC-coprocessor port is used to provide SPARC-vector operations both for vector arithmetic and for vector memory management. Both types of vector operations provide an order-of-magnitude increase in performance for medium- and large-scale vectors and a two-orders-of-magnitude increase in special cases.<>