> GPUs are simply the 1980s style SIMD super-computers
May be a terminology thing, or a technology I don't know, but I though '80s supercomputers like crays were vector processors, whereas I'm not aware of any commercial super at the time being SIMD (AKA array processor).
It seems to be a terminology confusion of mine. I did a bit of reading and it seems they're effectively the same thing implemented differently. An array processor in my mind was a lockstep SIMD thingy.
A vector processor as I understood it is nicely described here <https://www.quora.com/What-is-meant-by-an-array-processor-an... as "the earliest Crays had vector instructions, that quickly fed a stream of operands through a pipelined processor", which is not exactly the same implementation as SIMD, but after reflecting on your question, it does the same thing in the end.
So effectively no difference.
Also relevant <https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?t=401649> see reply of Accs who claims to have worked at cray, and also says in another post on the same thread "I think that Vector is nothing more than a special case of SIMD".
May be a terminology thing, or a technology I don't know, but I though '80s supercomputers like crays were vector processors, whereas I'm not aware of any commercial super at the time being SIMD (AKA array processor).