Over the past decade, two of the potentially most important advances in the "technology" of large scale scientific computing are sparse matrix (iterative) algorithms and vector processing. The plan is to build a software package that will bring the power of both advances to the aid of the scientific community without forcing that community to become expert in either technology. The software package is V-PCGPAK, a general vector, sparse matrix solver. V-PCGPAK will be based on PCGPAK, the Preconditioned Conjugate Gradient Package of subroutines for the iterative solution of large, sparse, nonsymmetric systems of linear equations. The solution of such systems is usually the compute- intensive kernel of large engineering and scientific computer programs.
