From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: a07f3367d7,4215feeab2a8154a X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,public,usenet X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news2.google.com!news1.google.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!npeer.de.kpn-eurorings.net!npeer-ng0.de.kpn-eurorings.net!newsfeed.arcor.de!newsspool4.arcor-online.net!news.arcor.de.POSTED!not-for-mail From: "Dmitry A. Kazakov" Subject: Re: C++0x and Threads - a poor relation to Ada's tasking model? Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada User-Agent: 40tude_Dialog/2.0.15.1 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Reply-To: mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de Organization: cbb software GmbH References: <81a101a3-b46e-4268-973c-356c6119ee2b@c14g2000yqm.googlegroups.com> <2785ff1e-661b-41ce-95a8-cef2862e2907@b14g2000yqd.googlegroups.com> <6239906b-e952-4bf9-8a11-b7faf942bdde@k19g2000yqn.googlegroups.com> <270bf4df-4d0b-4621-9005-80ef8ab51634@s31g2000yqs.googlegroups.com> <08na85tgfqucfb21lq82fug7b4ctn0astl@4ax.com> Date: Fri, 14 Aug 2009 15:50:26 +0200 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Date: 14 Aug 2009 15:49:53 CEST NNTP-Posting-Host: cb541c5b.newsspool2.arcor-online.net X-Trace: DXC=<>:=^SaGFaCE4ZB2flKORAA9EHlD;3YcB4Fo<]lROoRA^YC2XCjHcbIEL]HnTCDDNcfSJ;bb[EFCTGGVUmh?DLK[5LiR>kgB On Fri, 14 Aug 2009 13:50:11 +0100, John McCabe wrote: > On Fri, 14 Aug 2009 14:23:49 +0200, "Dmitry A. Kazakov" > wrote: > >>On Fri, 14 Aug 2009 12:13:49 +0100, John McCabe wrote: >> >>> I'll have a look at that. As a matter of interest, a long time ago >>> there were parallel C compilers for the Transputer. How did the >>> thread/processors communicate/interact in those languages? >> >>That was an operating system called PARIX. The idea was that each processor >>ran one process communicating with its neighbours over four serial 10Mbaud >>links. Individual transputers didn't have much memory, normally 4MB. I >>remember it was possible to have simple LIFO scheduling, so one could have >>threads, but that was not the "intended" use. I played with an idea to make >>an Ada (83) compiler for the beast. That never happened. It is close to 20 >>years ago... (:-() > > I did a lot of work on Transputers, but in Occam which made it > relatively easy for me to understand Ada's tasking when I got taught > it. We had a C compiler for the T800 from Niche I think, but I don't > remember anything specific about an OS. To me it was the opposite, we didn't use Occam, only the C compiler, which was a torture, because it was a native compiler! You first booted it into a transputer closest to the host, then feed it with the code over the link, make yourself a coffee and after a couple of minutes, you could read the compiled image back... As for the PARIX, it was rather a monitor than a true OS. It had some rudimentary support for host communication with marshaling connections over the transit nodes. I also remember that it had a TCP layer over the links. ---------- I wonder if transputers will make a come back. Arguably a multi-core memory sharing architecture is a dead end. Transputers had local memory. If they return as systems with 1000 and more loosely coupled nodes (cores), what will be a programming of look like? Ada's rendezvous will probably shine again... -- Regards, Dmitry A. Kazakov http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de