Book excerpt: Parallel architectures are no longer pure research vehicles, as they were some years ago. There are now many commercial systems competing for market segments in scientific computing. The 1990s are likely to become the decade of parallel processing. CONPAR 90 - VAPP IV is the joint successor meeting of two highly successful international conference series in the field of vector and parallel processing. This volume contains the 79 papers presented at the conference. The various topics of the papers include hardware, software and application issues. Some of the session titles best reflect the contents: new models of computation, logic programming, large-grain data flow, interconnection networks, communication issues, reconfigurable and scalable systems, novel architectures and languages, high performance systems and accelerators, performance prediction / analysis / measurement, performance monitoring and debugging, compile-time analysis and restructurers, load balancing, process partitioning and concurrency control, visualization and runtime analysis, parallel linear algebra, architectures for image processing, efficient use of vector computers, transputer tools and applications, array processors, algorithmic studies for hypercube-type systems, systolic arrays and algorithms. The volume gives a comprehensive view of the state of the art in a field of current interest.