[comp.sys.transputer] a xmas wish

gdburns@TBAG.OSC.EDU (Greg Burns) (12/21/89)

Would it not be nice if we had more standards in our corner of
the parallel computing world?

1) a standard object and executable format
2) a standard concurrency library for non-Occam languages
3) a standard, basic message passing library
4) a standard description language for multicomputer topologies

I think the only thing we do have is a standard file system interface, UNIX.
Am I wrong or can everybody handle

read(fd, buf, length);

You would think that with one chip we could get binary portability, but
I would settle for source level.  The Intel/Alliant PAX business got me
thinking about this.

------------------------
Greg Burns				gdburns@tbag.osc.edu
Trillium Diving Team			(614) 292-8492
Research Computing			The Ohio State University
Trollius - hand made - fine tailoring

stein@dhw68k.cts.com (Rick 'Transputer' Stein) (12/29/89)

In article <8912202119.AA23740@tbag.osc.edu> gdburns@TBAG.OSC.EDU (Greg Burns) writes:
>Would it not be nice if we had more standards in our corner of
>the parallel computing world?
>1) a standard object and executable format
>2) a standard concurrency library for non-Occam languages
>3) a standard, basic message passing library
>4) a standard description language for multicomputer topologies
Well, your suggestion is a good idea.  They (meaning the IEEE/ANSI folks)
have a POSIX standard.  Isn't that about UNIX?  Why not have one for
frigging message-passing extensions to it?  Or an altogether new
standard for the message-passing OSs?  Lot's o' problems with this
one.

Lobby your local IEEE office and see what happens. :-)
-- 
Richard M. Stein (aka, Rick 'Transputer' Stein)
Sole proprietor of Rick's Software Toxic Waste Dump and Kitty Litter Co.
"You build 'em, we bury 'em." uucp: ...{spsd, zardoz, felix}!dhw68k!stein