1. A method of executing a machine instruction in a central processing unit, the method comprising: obtaining, by a processor, a machine instruction for execution, the machine instruction being defined for computer execution according to a computer architecture, the machine instruction comprising: at least one opcode field to provide an opcode, the opcode identifying a Vector Checksum operation; a first register field to be used to designate a first register, the first register comprising a first operand; a second register field to be used to designate a second register, the second register comprising a second operand; and executing the machine instruction, the executing comprising: adding together a plurality of elements of the second operand to obtain a first result, wherein the adding comprises performing one or more end around carry add operations; based on performing an end around carry add operation and producing a sum, adding a carry out of a chosen position of the sum, if any, to a selected position in a selected element of the first operand, wherein the chosen position is bit position zero, the selected position is bit position 31 , and the selected element of the first operand is element one of the first operand; and placing the first result in the selected element of the first operand, and placing zeros in one or more other elements of the first operand.