Massively Parallel Processor Unit

This is part of an experimental computer, developed in the mid-1980s by the Goodyear Aerospace Corporation for the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The comptuer derives it name from its ability to operate on large arrays of data in parallel, i.e. on many numbers at once. By contrast, computers of conventional design operate on one or at most a few pieces of data per cycle. One intended application for such a design was the analysis of the large amounts of data received by remote sensing satelliltes.

The Massively Parallel Processor represented one of several approaches to the problem of processing data in parallel. Nearly all modern supercomputers use parallel processing, although not all follow this machine's architecture.

Transferred from NASA to the Museum in 1996.