This document provides an introduction to high-performance computing (HPC) including definitions, applications, hardware, and software. It defines HPC as utilizing parallel processing through computer clusters and supercomputers to solve complex modeling problems. The document then describes typical HPC cluster hardware such as computing nodes, a head node, switches, storage, and a KVM. It also outlines cluster management software, job scheduling, and parallel programming tools like MPI that allow programs to run simultaneously on multiple processors. An example HPC cluster at SIU called Maxwell is presented with its technical specifications and a tutorial on logging into and running simple MPI programs on the system.