kale@cs.uiuc.edu (L. V. Kale') (07/06/90)
The chare kernel parallel programming system, version 2.0, is now available via ftp. This is an explicitly parallel, machine independent language meant for programming any MIMD machine. It supports dynamic creation of small- medium grained "subcomputations", and "specific information sharing modes". It currently runs on iPSC/2, Sequent (symmetry, balance), Encore MultiMax, and ALLIANT. The port to NCUBE is almost complete (contact us if you need that). It can also be run on a uniprocessor (UNIX) for program development and experimentation purpose. It is being ported to BBN (Butterfly, TC-2000), Trolius (transputers), and a network of workstations, and will be ported to new MIMD machines. The user programs run without any change on all the machines. The language is largely C based - i.e. except for a syntactic super-structure, and a few restrictions, a program consists of C code blocks and function definitions. A parallel program written with this system usually runs with speeds comparable to the best sequential C program on a uni-processor, and gives good speedups with multiple processors on most benchmarks. It comes with a standard copyright, which as I understand it, precludes direct commercial (for profit) use, unless our consent is obtained first. The ftp procedure: ftp a.cs.uiuc.edu name: anonymous password: your name. Go to subdirectory pub/CK, and ftp all the files there (in binary mode): INSTALL, ck.tar.z, manual.tar.z, README, NOTICE It incldes a manual, and some simple demo programs. We also request that you send your name, institution, and email address to us (kale@cs.uiuc.edu) when you ftp it. Comments, feedback and bug-reports should also be sent to that address. Also, if you want any of our papers/reports on related topics, please send me email. L.V. Kale kale@cs.uiuc.edu (217) 244-0094 Dept. of Computer Science University of Illinois 1304 W. Springfield Ave. Urbana, IL-61801