We had one of these at CERN in the experimental physics group I was in 1990-1991. I had no idea they were rare or that the line was a failure. It was certainly faster than the other machines the group had access to at the time (except an onsite Cray, access to which was restricted only to members from "Western" countries for political reasons).
chasil|10 months ago
I still have an account. It runs on the Charon emulator.
A little after your time, I wrote code on a DECstation 5000/240 running MIPS/Ultrix. I'm surprised that wasn't faster, and/or available to you.
The vector extensions might have been your niche though.