Spert-II is a high-performance system for signal processing, multimedia, and neural network applications. The system is based on a custom fixed-point vector microprocessor packaged for standard workstations. The microprocessor is a single-chip implementation of the Torrent vector instruction-set architecture. Spert-II includes a versatile set of library routines. It also has a programming environment much like that of a workstation. The authors used the system to accelerate neural net algorithms. When they employed Spert-II to perform training and recall for the neural networks they use in speech recognition research, it proved to be faster than commercial workstations.