Flynn's taxonomy classifies parallel computers based on whether they have a single or multiple instruction/data streams. Common architectures include SISD (serial), SIMD (single instruction on multiple data), MISD (multiple instructions on single data), and MIMD (multiple instructions on multiple data). Shared memory machines provide a global address space but do not scale well, while distributed memory machines use message passing between separate memory spaces and scale better. Current high-performance machines include Blue Gene, Earth Simulator, and large clusters.