Overview
Vector processors were the dominant architecture for supercomputers in the 1970s and 80s (e.g., Cray-1). Unlike scalar processors that work on one data element at a time, vector processors have specialized hardware to process long sequences of data efficiently.
Modern Equivalent
While standalone vector processors are rare today, their principles live on in SIMD extensions of general-purpose CPUs and in GPUs, which are essentially massive vector processing engines.
Key Feature
Vector Registers: Large registers capable of holding dozens or hundreds of individual data elements.