The ASC, along with the Control Data Corporation STAR-100 supercomputer (which was introduced in the same year), were the first computers to feature vector processing.
Originally the software, including an operating system and a FORTRAN compiler, were done under contract by Computer Usage Company, under direction of George R. Trimble, Jr.[2][3] but later taken over by TI itself.
The ASC was based around a single high-speed shared memory, which was accessed by the CPU and eight I/O channel controllers, in an organization similar to Seymour Cray's groundbreaking CDC 6600.
The MCU was designed to operate asynchronously, allowing it to work at a variety of speeds and scale across a number of performance points.
The CPU had an extremely advanced architecture and organization for its era, supporting microcoded arithmetic and mathematical instructions that operated on scalars, vectors, or matrices.
The CRs stored the state required for communication between the various parts of the ASC: the CPU, VPs, and channel controllers.
Although the ASC was in some ways a more expandable design, in the supercomputer market speed is preferred,[clarification needed] and the Cray-1 was much faster.
The ASC #1 prototype was a one pipe system and brought up in Austin, Texas, off site from TI's main plant for proprietary information reasons.
ASC #3 was installed at the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, for Anti Ballistic Missile Interception technology development.
With the SALT Treaty, the system was later redeployed to the Army Corps of Engineers in Vicksburg, Mississippi, for dam stress analysis.
ASC systems #5 and #6 were installed at TI's main plant in Austin and also used by GSI for seismic data processing.