 In addition to the redesign of the 8600, CDC had another project called the CDC STAR-100 under way, led by Cray's former collaborator on the 6600/7600, Jim Thornton.Unlike the 8600's "four computers in one box" solution to the speed problem, the STAR was a new design using a unit that we know today as the vector processor.By highly pipelining mathematical instructions with purpose-built instructions and hardware, mathematical processing is dramatically improved in a machine that was otherwise slower than a 7600.