CORK@cs.umass.edu (Dan Corkill, COINS, UMass 413/545-0156) (06/01/89)
For the record, here is the official ``scoop'' on GBB and availability
information on obtaining the GBB software from UMass. (The full GBB
system involves nearly 1MByte of source code, so plan accordingly.)
Rumor also has it that a commercial offering of a substantially enhanced
GBB product and support services will be announced this summer.
-- Dan
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GBB: A Generic Blackboard Development System
August 1988
GENERAL INFORMATION
The Generic Blackboard Development System (GBB) is a development tool for
constructing high-performance blackboard-based systems. GBB provides
speed and flexibility in implementing an application as well as efficient
execution of the resulting application. GBB views the blackboard as a
hierarchical forest of nested blackboards. Blackboard objects reside in
spaces, which are the leaves of this hierarchy. Each space can be
defined as a highly structured, n-dimensional volume, with blackboard
objects occupying some extent within the space. Efficient insertion and
retrieval of blackboard objects is achieved using a language specifying
the dimensional structure of each space and a separate specification of
how that space is to be implemented. These specifications are combined
to generate a highly-tuned blackboard database kernel tailored to the
application.
GBB V2.1 contains four distinct subsystems:
1. A high-level blackboard database compiler and runtime support
system.
2. A set of knowledge source (KS) shells for situations where native
Common Lisp is unsuitable. (Currently only an OPS5 KS shell is
available.)
3. A growing set of generic control shells.
4. A graphic display subsystem for examining the blackboard. (The
graphic display subsystem is currently available only for Texas
Instruments Explorer workstations.)
GBB was begun late in 1985, and is available to AI researchers. GBB
remains under active development, with major development efforts
underway on both distributed and shared-memory, parallel blackboard
architectures.
To date, the following papers have been written discussing GBB:
Daniel D. Corkill, Kevin Q. Gallagher, and Kelly E. Murray. "GBB: A
generic blackboard development system." In Proceedings of the National
Conference on Artificial Intelligence, pages 1008-1014, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, August 1986. (Also in Blackboard Systems, Robert S.
Engelmore and Anthony Morgan, editors, pages 503-518, Addison-Wesley,
1988. Also published as Technical Report 86-67, Department of Computer
and Information Science, University of Massachusetts, Amherst,
Massachusetts 01003, April 1986.)
Daniel D. Corkill, Kevin Q. Gallagher, and Philip M. Johnson. "From
Prototype to Product: Evolutionary Development within the Blackboard
Paradigm." Technical Report 86-46, Department of Computer and Information
Science, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003,
October 1986. (Presented at Workshop on High Level Tools for Knowledge
Based Systems, Columbus, Ohio, October 7-8, 1986.)
Daniel D. Corkill, Kevin Q. Gallagher, and Philip M. Johnson.
"Achieving flexibility, efficiency, and generality in blackboard
architectures." In Proceedings of the National Conference on Artificial
Intelligence, pages 18-23, Seattle, Washington, July 1987. (Also in Readings
in Distributed Artificial Intelligence, Alan Bond and Les Gasser, editors,
pages 451-456, Morgan Kaufmann, 1988. Also published as Technical Report
87-37, Department of Computer and Information Science, University of
Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003, April 1987.)
Philip M. Johnson, Daniel D. Corkill, and Kevin Q. Gallagher.
"Integrating BB1-Style Control into the Generic Blackboard System."
Technical Report 87-59, Department of Computer and Information Science,
University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003, June 1987.
(Presented at the AAAI-87 Blackboard Workshop, Seattle, Washington, July
13, 1987.)
Daniel D. Corkill and Kevin Q. Gallagher. "Tuning a blackboard-based
application: A case study using GBB." In Proceedings of the National
Conference on Artificial Intelligence, pages 671-676, St. Paul, Minnesota,
August 1988. (Also published as Technical Report 88-37, Department of
Computer and Information Science,University of Massachusetts, Amherst,
Massachusetts 01003, April 1988.)
Daniel D. Corkill. "Design alternatives for parallel and distributed
blackboard systems." Technical Report 88-38, Department of Computer and
Information Science, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts
01003, August 1988. (Presented at the AAAI-88 Blackboard Workshop,
St. Paul, Minnesota, August 24,1988.)
Kevin Q. Gallagher, Daniel D. Corkill, and Philip M. Johnson. "GBB
Reference Manual." Department of Computer and Information Science,
University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003, GBB Version 1.2
edition, September 1988. (Published as Technical Report 88-66, Department
of Computer and Information Science, University of Massachusetts, Amherst,
Massachusetts 01003, September 1988.)
Kevin Q. Gallagher and Daniel D. Corkill. "Blackboard retrieval
strategies in GBB." Technical Report 88-39, Department of Computer
and Information Science, University of Massachusetts, Amherst,
Massachusetts 01003, November 1988.
Support for GBB is provided, in part, by the following sources:
- Donations from Texas Instruments, Incorporated;
- NSF CER grant DCR-8500332;
- ONR URI contract N00014-86-K-0764.
Additional support for GBB is provided by members of the GBB Consortium.
Consortium membership inquiries should be directed to the address below.
AVAILABILITY
To receive a copy of GBB, return the order form at this end of this message.
(GBB can also be obtained via anonymous FTP. To receive FTP instructions,
send a request to GBB-Request@CS.UMass.Edu.) GBB is available without cost,
and is provided with the following understanding:
1. Title and copyright to this software and any material associated
therewith shall at all times remain with the Department of Computer and
Information Science (COINS) at the University of Massachusetts at
Amherst.
2. The user acknowledges that the software and associated materials are
provided as a research tool that remains under active development and
is being supplied "as is" for the purposes of scientific collaboration
aimed at further development and application of the software and the
exchange of technical data.
3. All software and materials developed as a consequence of the use of
this software shall duly acknowledge such use, in accordance with the
usual standards of acknowledging credit in academic research.
4. Users of this software agree to make their best efforts to inform the
COINS GBB Development Group of noteworthy uses of this software. Users
are further encouraged to make themselves known to this group so that
new releases, bug fixes, and tutorial information can be distributed as
they become available.
5. COINS makes no representations or warranties of the merchantability or
fitness of this software for any particular purpose; that uses of the
software and associated materials will not infringe any patents,
copyrights, trademarks, or other rights; nor that the operation of this
software will be error-free. COINS is under no obligation to provide
any services, by way of maintenance, update, or otherwise.
6. In conjunction with products or services arising from the use of this
material, there shall be no use of the name of the Department of
Computer and Information Science or the University of Massachusetts in
any advertising, promotional, or sales literature without prior written
consent from COINS in each case.
GBB is written in Common Lisp and runs on any Common Lisp implementation.
GBB uses a few primitives (primarily for interacting with Common Lisp's
DEFSTRUCT capabilities) that cannot be efficiently written in generic
Common Lisp. For maximum performance, we strongly recommend that these
primitives be rewritten for the particular Common Lisp implementation.
We supply these optimizations for the following Common Lisp
implementations:
- Texas Instruments Explorer Lisp machines;
- Symbolics Lisp machines;
- Digital Equipment Corporation's VaxLisp;
- Lucid Common Lisp.
Typically, 2-4 programmer hours are required to write the
optimizations for a particular Common Lisp implementation.
There is an informal GBB electronic mailing list. It is a forum for
discussing problems or experiences using GBB as well as announcing new
features and updates to GBB. To send a message to the list use the
address GBB@CS.Umass.Edu. To be added to the list send mail to
GBB-Request@CS.UMass.Edu.
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GBB Order Form
Name (Contact Person): _______________________________________________________
Organization: _______________________________________________________
Phone Number: _______________________________________________________
Postal Address: _______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________
E-mail Address: _______________________________________________________
Tape Format: ____ Explorer Backup Tape
____ Symbolics Carry Tape
____ VMS Backup Tape (9 track, __ 1600 or __ 6250 bpi)
____ Unix Tar Tape (9 track, __ 1600 or __ 6250 bpi)
Machine(s): ____ Explorer or micro-Explorer Lisp Workstation
____ Symbolics Lisp workstation
____ Sun (with Sun Common Lisp)
____ VAX (VMS or Ultrix with VaxLisp)
____ Macintosh (with Allegro Common Lisp)
____ Other: __________________________________________
GBB development is supported in part by several U.S. government agencies. It
would help us to know if you are using GBB in research directly sponsored by
any of the following:
____ Air Force Office of Scientific Research
____ U.S. Army
____ Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
____ National Aeronautics and Space Administration
____ National Institute of Health
____ National Science Foundation
____ Office of Naval Research
____ Other U.S. Government Agency: ___________________________________
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To receive a copy of GBB, complete the above form and return it to:
GBB Development Group
C/O Dr. Daniel D. Corkill
Department of Computer and Information Science
Lederle Graduate Research Center
University of Massachusetts
Amherst, Massachusetts 01003
Phone: 413/545-0156
FAX: 413/545-1249
or via E-mail to GBB-Request@CS.UMass.Edu.
Installation instructions and one copy of the GBB Reference Manual are
included in the distribution kit. We ask that you promptly return the tape
media after installing GBB on your system. Prompt return insures that you
remain in our good graces regarding future releases of GBB and will allow
us to continue our policy of supplying loaner media without charge.
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