Ed G's fuzzy recollections (corrected by Shmuel) > >> IBM a few years ago introduced a 3838 (?) for number crunching. IIRC > >> it went down in flames. > > The vector facility of the 3090 replaced it. > > > >> There did not seem to be a market for such an animal. > > > > Then why did IBM bother with the VF? > > Never heard of it so I guess it, that doesn't mean it never existed > just an extremely small audience. I don't recall ever hearing > anything about VF . I would expect if it were popular that there > would be a current model, no? <snip>
The vector feature was available on some models of the 3090. It was a SIMD (Single Instruction applied to Multiple Data operands) vector engine and IIRC you could add VF engines but each one had to replace a general purpose engine. IBM offered them because customers wanted them. The financial community bought a number of them and for a while in the mid/late 80's the 3090/600s were in the top ten or so of super computers. I guess it just didn't intrude on your world Ed. CC ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
