We overview the GRAPE (GRAvity piPE) project. The goal of the GRAPE project is to accelerate the astrophysical N-body simulations. Since almost all computing time is spent for the evaluation of the gravitational force between particles, we can greatly accelerate many N-body simulations by developing a specialized hardware for the force calculation. In 1989, the first such hardware, GRAPE-1, was completed, with the peak speed of 120 Mflops. In 2003, GRAPE-6 was completed, with the peak speed of 64 Tflops, which is nearly 106 times faster than GRAPE-l and was the fastest computer at that time. In this paper, we review the basic concept of the GRAPE hardwares, the history of the GRAPE project, and two ongoing projects, GRAPE-DR and Project Milkyway.

• JUNICHIRO MAKINO(Department of Astronomy, University of Tokyo)