[comp.sys.transputer] Applicative languages on transputer systems

wg@tubopal.UUCP (Wolfgang Grieskamp) (06/29/90)

(I have posted this a few days ago to several newsgroups but one was
moderated ... it seems it walked accross the atlantic to the moderator
of comp.parallel then back to europe and now appears _only_ in 
comp.parallel. Implementors of news-posters, _please_ warn if the
moderator flag is set!) 

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Hello!

The OPAL group TU-Berlin plays with an experimental applicative 
language to research transformations to real efficient code for
sequential and parallel machines. The language OPAL has pure 
applicative evaluation order but a builtin STREAM concept which seems 
to be closely related to the transputer architecture. 

I'm searching for information about the implementation of 
applicative languages on transputer systems or related ones. 	
Imperative languages are also of interest, but in general reference 
transparence drops many hard problems and opens mind for others.

I would be glad to get hints according to one of the following
topics:

o	trusty papers about the transputer  from the compiler 
	constructors viewpoint.

o	availability of T800 configuration emulators which support 
	communication/synchronization monitoring (as far such is possible) 
	under sun3 or sun4.

o	availability of OCCAM for sun3 or sun4 machines.

o	experiences/opinions/papers about the compilation of applicative 
	languages for transputers or related systems in general:

	o	Dataflow, abstract interpretation or other approaches to 
		calculate the distribution of stream consumers/producers 
		throughout a static network at compile time. 

	o	The problem of mapping dynamic nets to static ones. 
		Approaches to estimate the extension and structure of 
		a dynamic subnet?
	
	o	In OPAL we express (at source level) large-grain parallelism
		via recursive network equations which connect stream 
		processors.  The user would not like to write down nets when 
		he/she actually thinks in plain functions; the compiler must 
		exploit implied parallelism of high-cost applications using 
		source transformations to produce weak equivalent networks.
		Any researches in this direction?
		
o	Critical discussions of the stream concept. Alternate
	ways to handle communication and parallelism in functional
	languages?

Many thanks for your effort (I will summarize on interest).


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Wolfgang Grieskamp       "Die Welt ist tief! Und tiefer als der Tag gedacht!" 
wg@opal.cs.tu-berlin.de        tub!tubopal!wg         wg%opal@DB0TUI11.BITNET