Vectorization of Weather and Climate Models for the CYBER 205

Abstract

The United Kingdom Meteorological Office installed a Cyber 205 computer in August 1981. All operational numerical weather forecasting was transferred from the existing IBM 360/195 to the Cyber about one year later. The Cyber was by that time also being used extensively for research work on climate studies, on meso-scale modelling and on developing new techniques to improve operational data analysis and weather forecasting. The Meteorological Office’s Cyber 205 has one megaword of main memory, two vector pipelines, seven 819 disks accessible via LCN along three paths. The Cyber is connected to two IBM front-end computers (currently a 3081D and a 370/158) via LCN. All the main peripheral devices (disk and tape units, plotters, printers, card readers, microfiche and microfilm output devices etc) are attached to the front-end computers. Consequently all output from the Cyber 205 has to be passed across the links to the front-end computers before being processed and stored.