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From: raja@osc.edu (Raja Daoud)
Newsgroups: comp.parallel
Subject: Ohio PC Trollius 2.1
Message-ID: <1991Jun18.121044.13763@hubcap.clemson.edu>
Date: 18 Jun 91 00:28:00 GMT
Sender: fpst@hubcap.clemson.edu (Steve Stevenson)
Organization: The Ohio Supercomputer Center
Lines: 71
Approved: parallel@hubcap.clemson.edu
Apparently-To: comp-parallel@oar.net


Ohio PC Trollius 2.1 is now in release.

An adaptation of Ohio Trollius 2.1 for transputers hosted by MS DOS
personal computers has been completed at OSU.  For brevity,
I will use its nickname, PC-T.

PC-T is identical to Unix Trollius on the transputers (ITB nodes).
Each transputer runs the usual multitasking Trollius kernel and
system processes.  These servers support features like dynamic process
management, arbitrary message passing, process status, Unix-like signals,
tunable message buffering, routing, multicasting, multi-weight threads,
remote node process spawning, etc.  Again, this is not different from
Unix hosted transputers.

PC-T is a single tasking solution of Trollius for the single tasking
operating system, DOS.  The goal is to give DOS users an opportunity to
use Trollius.  With single tasking, Trollius user programs
cannot be run concurrently on the PC.  This is the only restriction
over Unix Trollius.  I believe this approach is taken by some
other software systems for transputers and DOS.  Again, we are only
talking here about the host node, the PC, the thing that runs DOS.
The ITB nodes (transputers) run full blown multitasking Trollius natively.

PC-T does not make a Trollius OTB node out of the PC.  There is
no kernel, no datalink processes, no other system processes, only
the single Trollius service program, called tserver.  Tserver
handles a) filed requests, b) loadd requests and c) commands.
All Trollius commands are fully supported.  Tserver represents
less than 1000 lines of documented C code beyond existing Trollius
code for Unix.

PC-T fully supports the process schema (conf) grammar for configuring
the ITB node operating system as well as the NaIL grammar for
configuring the topology of the ITB nodes.  Any number of nodes,
with any identification scheme, in any topology are supported.

PC-T is booted exactly like Unix Trollius, with the spread command.
Other topology tools like map and solder are unchanged.  You prepare
(or grab) a boot schema describing the machine you want, make sure
a route file exists (if not, use map), configure the nodes, if
necessary, with solder, then type spread.  This is exactly like
Unix hosted Trollius.

PC-T has a very simple command line shell.  It supports all the
Trollius commands, a help menu and an escape for DOS commands.
It is quite easy to extend.  You can stop and start tserver
while Trollius continues to run on the transputers.

PC-T is available with the complete sources.

PC-T requires the Logical Systems Transputer Toolset as a companion
product.

PC-T is developed with Microsoft C.  Compatibility with Turbo-C
probably only requires a few string substitutions.

PC-T will be licensed similar to Unix Trollius.
The 2.1 version will carry the same license fee, $300 US, as
regular Ohio Trollius.  Distribution will be either via ftp (preferred)
or 5 1/4 inch floppy diskettes.

Development of PC-T was partially supported by Inmos, with a
donation of four T800-17s.  We used the Inmos/LS/CSA educational
kit and generally had a very good experience.

Raja Daoud
-- 
Raja Daoud					raja@tbag.osc.edu
Trollius Operating System			(614) 292-4123
Ohio Supercomputer Center			Trollius Factory Outlet
The Ohio State University			3.0: The Big Picture