HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: yariva@gemini.math.tau.ac.il (Aridor Yariv )
Newsgroups: fj.mail-lists.parallel
Subject: hardware support for fine-grained comp.
Date: 15 Apr 92 12:13:24 GMT
Distribution: fj

I am working on a parallel language which combines functional and object 
oriented subsets. In general the implementation is based on light-weight tasks
which as usual, causes overhead (in every processor) due to their
allocation/scheduling/context-switch.

I am looking for references on SPECIAL HARDWARE FEATURES which helps to overcome
this local overhead like : 

1. co-processors/hardware which prepare (IN PARALLEL) the next task(process) in the 
   queue for work (Make ready the relevant data in registers). 

2. Special machine instructions. 

Are there any articles on this subject ? 

Thanx for the cooperation.

	- Yariv Aridor
	  E-mail:yariva@math.tau.ac.il

paper address:

Yariv Aridor
Computer Science Dept.
Tel-Aviv university
Ramat-Aviv
Tel-Aviv 69978
ISRAEL
From: ncs@cs.rit.edu (Nan C Schaller)
Newsgroups: fj.mail-lists.parallel
Subject: Occam and Transputer Engineering Course Update
Date: 12 Apr 92 23:11:56 GMT
Distribution: fj


		   **** COURSE UPDATE ****

              OCCAM AND TRANSPUTER ENGINEERING
   An Intensive Short Course for Scientists and Engineers

                     May 27 - 29, 1992

             Rochester Institute of Technology
                    Rochester, New York


Rochester Institute of Technology is happy to announce the arrival
of the PACT parallel C compiler.  We are working to incorporate the
use of this parallel C compiler into the hands-on portion of 
our May "OCCAM AND TRANSPUTER ENGINEERING COURSE".  Our current 
intention is to include C examples as exercises on the last day
of the course.

In addition, CSA has promised delivery of one of their Education Kits
for your examination during the course.  This kit contains a single 
transputer board and a startup version of the INMOS toolset for use 
in an IBM PC.  We will be giving this kit away via a drawing at the 
end of the course.  

Literature and demonstations from other vendors will also be available.

The deadline for course registration is April 15.  If you need furthur
information concerning the course or if I can answer any further 
questions, please feel free to call me or send me e-mail.

			Nan Schaller
			Rochester Institute of Technology
			ncs@cs.rit.edu
			(716) 475-2139
From: roy@netcom.com (Roy Carlson)
Newsgroups: fj.mail-lists.parallel
Subject: PARALLEL Processing Connection meeting notice
Date: 7 Apr 92 13:59:24 GMT
Distribution: fj

PARALLEL Processing Connection meeting notice --

Technology transfer -- always an important issue for the national 
laboratories is especially significant in this day of defense cutbacks and 
economic recession. Senior staff members of Lawrence Livermore have 
agreed to show us some of the lab projects which are presently available for 
licensing into the private sector. Tony Bernhardt will talk about laser 
pantography for multi-chip module packaging; Tony DeGroot will discuss 
his SPRINT systolic array processor and the application software that 
Livermore has ported to it. These and other technologies are available for 
license and cooperative research with the Livermore Labs. Given the 
economic pressures, we should see some excellent entrepreneurial 
opportunities.

The meeting will take place at 7:30PM on April 13th at the NeXT 
Corporation at 123 Saginaw Drive in Redwood City. This is one mile east  
of the Seaport Boulevard exit off 101, left onto Chesapeake Drive and then 
the second left onto Saginaw.

Please be prompt; as usual, we expect a large attendance; don't be left out or 
left standing. There is a $8 fee for non-members and members are admitted 
free.

-- 
B. Mitchell Loebel                                      parallel@netcom.COM
PARALLEL Processing Connection                                 408-732-9869
From: the_shadow@desire.wright.edu
Newsgroups: fj.mail-lists.parallel
Subject: Hooking 386 to 486 and back ....
Date: 15 Apr 92 20:24:39 GMT
Distribution: fj

I have a dilemma I hope someone out there in News-land can help me with...

My boss wants to connect my 386 with a 486 and share the same information back
and forth...speedily. I know I can use a null modem cable and comm software to 
do this but I have heard about a program that enables you to actually access 
the hard drive or floppy drive of the other machine as if it were your own. 
This would be ideal for me.  Does anyone have first hand knowledge of Desklink 
or Carbon Copy software packages?

Because my configuration is so complex, I'm not even sure if it will do what I 
need it to do.  My LasterMaster controller card does not use the Windows print 
manager and takes over the whole CPU while it prints, I tried a buffer in the
past and it didn't work any faster. I guess what I'm asking is:

Will one of these programs enable me control the printer with one PC while
keeping the other free to do work?  If not, what can I use? Will I have to go 
to a full blown Network (someone recommended Lantastic...any users of this 
set up out there?)...I'm sooooo confused. I have no knowledge of networks so 
if I can get off easy with a little software package and a null modem cord...I 
will be happy.  If not...I NEED HELP!!!!

Thanks...

Lynne

    ::Singing:: I'm dreaming of a zero wait state...




Anyone have any ideas???? 

email:   The_Shadow@desire.wright.edu
From: kcollins@convex.com (Kirby L. Collins)
Newsgroups: fj.mail-lists.parallel
Subject: Has anyone read Green Parallel Processing for Computer Graphics?
Date: 15 Apr 92 12:13:36 GMT
Distribution: fj

I just got the latest MIT Press flyer, and it describes a book by
Stuart Green titled "Parallel Processing for Computer Graphics".
According to the blurb it "provides background information on both
computer graphics and parallel computers and then goes on to 
describe how a distributed memory multiprocessor can be used to
effectively implement the ray tracing algorithm."

Anyone read a copy of this book yet?
From: ian@spider.co.uk
Newsgroups: fj.mail-lists.parallel
Subject: Multiple Readers/Single Writers Lock
Date: 7 Apr 92 11:38:53 GMT
Distribution: fj

I'm looking for references or implementations of an efficient
spin-lock based scheme for multiple-reader/single-writers locking.

I'd be interested in

1. a scheme which queues a writer behind all current readers. 
2. a cheaper scheme with possible writer starvation
3. efficient implementations on 80386 hardware.

This must be a well trodden path, but the only implementations I've found
are semaphore based, and the in environment in question all critical sections
are short.

Thanks for any tips,

ian



---
Ian Heavens				ian@spider.co.uk                 
Spider Systems Ltd			
Spider Park, Stanwell Street		
Edinburgh, EH6 5NG, Scotland		+44 31 554 9424 (Ext 4166)
--
From: hong@huanghe.unl.edu (Hong Jiang)
Newsgroups: fj.mail-lists.parallel
Subject: Phone Numbers of Vendors
Date: 6 Apr 92 15:24:27 GMT
Article-I.D.: nttlab.283125
Distribution: fj

Hi there,
	I am looking for information regarding commercial parallel machines (SIMD
and MIMD). In particular, I'd like to know the current price range (for a given 
configuration) and processing power (however vague it may sound, again, per given 
configuration) of all major commercial parallel machines on today's market.
	I'd appreciate it tremendously if somebody out there could furnish me with
the above information OR the PHONE NUMBERS of RESPECTIVE VENDORS.

	Please send your reply via email to:

	jiang@cse.unl.edu or hong@huanghe.unl.edu

	Thank you very much in advance!


Hong Jiang, Ph.D
Dept of CS&E
Univ. of Nebraska-Lincoln  (402)472-6747 (O)
From: br@cs.cmu.edu (Bill Ross)
Newsgroups: fj.mail-lists.parallel
Subject: Fast window summation on a SIMD machine
Date: 15 Apr 92 12:13:09 GMT
Distribution: fj


    I am looking for an idea for a high-performance algorithm for
    the following problem:

	I have a large SIMD machine (maspar) with an image distributed
	across the 2-dimensional array of processors.  Each processor has
	a small (8*8), square piece of the image.  I want to produce a new
	image in which the new pixels represent the sum, in the original
	image, of a large (64*64) window around that pixel.  

	Currently, I copy the large window of pixels onto each processor from
	the surrounding processors and then perform an efficient window
	summation algorithm without having to do any further communication.
	This is very inefficient because each processor is duplicating many
	of the additions of its neighbors.

	Any ideas?  Pointers to published references?

    Thanks!
    Bill Ross
    br@cs.cmu.edu
From: mrm@puffin.Eng.Sun.COM (Marianne Mueller)
Newsgroups: fj.mail-lists.parallel
Subject: Re: parallel fast multipole method
Date: 12 Apr 92 23:11:00 GMT
Distribution: fj

A polymer physicist at DuPont, Dr Lustig, has good results using fast
multipole method in conjunction with SIMD implementation on
hypercubes.  Using fast multipole & SIMD, his applications now run
faster on the hypercube than on Cray Y/MP.  He's interested in
molecular dynamics of dense substances.

Dr Lustig is part of the Rutgers CAIP project (Computer Aids for
Industrial Productivity.)  I think he's publishing his results but I
don't know when or where!  Try contacting him through CAIP:

Center For Computer Aids for Industrial Productivity
Rutgers University
Frelinghuysen Road
P.O. Box 1390
Piscataway, NJ 08855-1390

Tel: (908) 932-4208
From: pjn@mimsy.cs.umd.edu (P. J. Narayanan)
Newsgroups: fj.mail-lists.parallel
Subject: Re: Fast window summation on a SIMD machine
Date: 16 Apr 92 12:21:11 GMT
Distribution: fj

-    I am looking for an idea for a high-performance algorithm for
-    the following problem:
-
-	I have a large SIMD machine (maspar) with an image distributed
-	across the 2-dimensional array of processors.  Each processor has
-	a small (8*8), square piece of the image.  I want to produce a new
-	image in which the new pixels represent the sum, in the original
-	image, of a large (64*64) window around that pixel.  


	I don't know if I am stating something obvious to everyone,
but there is a simple way that I haven't come across in any books
(perhaps due to its simplicity) of achieving something close to the
above if each processor contains a single pixel (finding the
sum of a WxW window around each pixel).

	Compute the left to right prefix sums of the pixel value for
each row (using a parallel prefix). Now, each pixel receives the
prefix sums from the two ends of the W-long window in its row. (i.e.,
pixel in col N receives the sums from pixel in col N + W/2 and in col
N - W/2 - 1 in its row). The difference between these gives the sum of
W-interval in its row. Performing the same computations across the
columns, one is left with the required sum of the WxW window around
each pixel. The operation takes 2 parallel prefixes, 4 communications,
and 2 subtractions. The W/2-wide band at the borders might need
special handling, though.

	I can't give an easy way of adapting this procedure when each
PE contains a wxw window of the image, but I think it can be done.


P J Narayanan
From: rthomson@dsd.es.com (Rich Thomson)
Newsgroups: fj.mail-lists.parallel
Subject: Re: Raytracing on a CM
Date: 14 Apr 92 12:32:59 GMT
Distribution: fj

>In article <1992Apr6.152259.21385@hubcap.clemson.edu>
	MXD120@psuvm.psu.edu (Beaker) writes:
>>I have a friend who has access to a Connection Machine and we were
>>thinking of compiling a raytracer on it (DKB or Rayshade) to create
>>frames for animation.  I know that the code has to be optimized to
>>run on a parallel machine, but I'm not sure how to do this.

The Rayshade implementation has a parallel port based on Linda-C.  I'm
not sure how well this would port to a CM, though.

>>Has anybody out there done this?

There has been much research done on implementing a
distributed/parallel ray tracer.  Check the graphics literature for
the words "parallel" and "distributed".  Somewhere there was a
parallel graphics bibliography available on the net (I can't remember
where) and about 90% of the work was on distributing a ray-tracer.

In article <1992Apr13.181859.4155@hubcap.clemson.edu>
	pelegrin@geocub.greco-prog.fr (Francois PELLEGRINI) writes:
>	Argh! The CM-2 is a SIMD machine. It implies that all processors must
>do the same thing at the same time. As the ray trees will be quite different
>from one pixel to another, (not even speaking of texture and shadow rays
>computation), you will be in BIG trouble.

Not necessarily.  Careful reorganization of the algorithms may let you
take advantage of the CM-2.  Of course, this is just off the top of my
head and not a statement based on a careful analysis of how well this
problem maps to the CM architecture.

							-- Rich
-- 
	Repeal the personal income tax; vote Libertarian in 1992.
Disclaimer: I speak for myself, except as noted; Copyright 1992 Rich Thomson
UUCP: ...!uunet!dsd.es.com!rthomson			Rich Thomson
Internet: rthomson@dsd.es.com	IRC: _Rich_		PEXt Programmer
From: payne@odin.unomaha.edu (Matt G. Payne)
Newsgroups: fj.mail-lists.parallel
Subject: Communication on the Connection Machine
Date: 15 Apr 92 20:25:21 GMT
Distribution: fj

Greetings!

I'm a bit confused about the costs of communication on the CM2 and how
it relates to the communication mechanisms available in C*.  Your
help in clearing a few things up would be greatly appreciated.  

Supose there is a 2-dimensional shape:
	
	(0,0) (1,0)

	(0,1) (1,1)

By using one of the C* functions, it is very efficient & fast to send
from (0,0) to (1,0), since the communication is in just one dimension.
Left indexing may be used to send from (0,0) to (1,1), EG:
	[0][0]x = [1][1]y;
My questions are:
	1) Does this cost more than two efficient one-dimension
	   sends -- (0,0) to (1,0) to (1,1)?  
	2) If so, how much more?  
	3) Is there anyway to get C* to optimize your left indexing?  
	4) Is the cost of left-indexing communication proportional to
	   the distance between the VPs?  How much more does
	   "[0][0]x = [100][100]y" cost than "[0][0]x = [1][1]y"?
	   How does this communication-cost(distance) function work??
	5) How is contention handled?  If a C* fragment like:
		where (blah) 
		   {
		   [i][j]x=[k][l]y;
		   }
	   causes N VPs to send messages to one another, how is the
	   contention handled?  Is there a way to predict ahead of
	   time what the performance will be when doing N left-index
	   operations simultanously?

	   
Lastly, my group is experimenting with an implementation of the
Chandy-Misra simulation algorithm for circuit simulation on a CM2
in C* and I would appreciate any comments, thoughts, or communication
with anyone who has done (or heard about) anything related to this.

Thank you very much for your time. --- matt :-)


--
"The world would be a better place if people only communicated with e-mail."
-- payne@odin.unomaha.edu
From: eugene@nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya)
Newsgroups: fj.mail-lists.parallel
Subject: Re: Raytracing on a CM
Date: 15 Apr 92 12:14:13 GMT
Distribution: fj

In article <1992Apr14.123255.7379@hubcap.clemson.edu> rthomson@dsd.es.com
(Rich Thomson) writes:
>the words "parallel" and "distributed".  Somewhere there was a
>parallel graphics bibliography available on the net (I can't remember
>where) and about 90% of the work was on distributing a ray-tracer.

It is integrated into the biblio.

>In article <1992Apr13.181859.4155@hubcap.clemson.edu>
>	pelegrin@geocub.greco-prog.fr (Francois PELLEGRINI) writes:
>>	Argh! The CM-2 is a SIMD machine. It implies that all processors must
>>do the same thing at the same time. As the ray trees will be quite different
>>from one pixel to another, (not even speaking of texture and shadow rays
>>computation), you will be in BIG trouble.

Same thing?  Not quite.
SIMD computing/programming only means you will learn about masking
and other operations.  The vector world learned how to deal with this
over a decade ago.  On to more difficult problems. ;^)

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@orville.nas.nasa.gov
  Resident Cynic, Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers
  {uunet,mailrus,other gateways}!ames!eugene
This is the Usenet: do you expect anything other than gross generalizations?
Ref: Mathematics and Plausible Reasoning, vol. 1, G. Polya
From: jab@cs.duke.edu (John A. Board)
Newsgroups: fj.mail-lists.parallel
Subject: Re: parallel fast multipole method
Date: 12 Apr 92 23:11:28 GMT
Distribution: fj

In article <1992Apr2.132157.8808@hubcap.clemson.edu>, figuei@caladan.rutgers.edu (Francisco Figueirido) writes:
> 
> 
> Hi! I am interested in finding documentation about the fast multipole method
> applied to the calculation of interaction forces, either in an astrophysical
> or molecular dynamics context, specially parallel implementations. I will
> appreciate any pointers ... Thanks!
>
We (at Duke) have implemented the three dimensional fast multipole method on
five or six different parallel computers and/or distributed environments
(i.e. Linda, PVM) and have had good success with it; we have a uniprocessor
cross-over point (where FMM is more efficient than brute force Coulomb or
gravitational summation) of about 3000 particles, and we obtain 
more or less linear speedup on modestly sized (<= 32 processor) parallel
systems.  In collaboration with the Univ. of Illinois we have incorporated 
our code into a molecular dynamics program and are getting good improvements 
in uniprocessor simulation time (factors of 10) on large molecules and 
additional speedups from parallelism.  

Anyone who would like more information can email me for a copy of our
tech reports on this (only a brief description of the MD work is available
at the moment). email address is jab@ee.egr.duke.edu


 
-- 
John Board                                   INET: jab@ee.egr.duke.edu
Assistant Professor                            or  jab@duke.cs.duke.edu
Dept. Electrical Eng'g and Dept. Comp. Sci.  FAX:   +1 (919) 660-5293
Duke University, Durham NC 27706 USA         VOICE: +1 (919) 660-5272
From: banshee@cats.UCSC.EDU
Newsgroups: fj.mail-lists.parallel
Subject: Re: parallel fast multipole method
Date: 6 Apr 92 15:24:14 GMT
Article-I.D.: nttlab.283122
Distribution: fj


	Check:

	Parallel Version of the FMM
	Computers Math Applications
	20,7 63 (1990)

	Implementing the FMM in 3D
	KE Schmidt  MA Lee
	J Stat Phys
	63, 1223 (1991 June)

	Fast Algorithm for Particle Simulations
	Greengard  Rokhlin
	J Comp Phys
	73, 325  (1987)

	I've seen very little actual use of the FMM, most of the above is 
benchmarking and algorithm proofs.  There are some MIT and Yale tech reports
that I've not been able to get copies of as yet.  Please post or mail if there
are some application-based papers on the FMM that I've missed.

-- 
The Wailer at the Gates of Dawn              | banshee@cats.UCSC.EDU       |
Just who ARE you calling a FROOFROO Head?    |                             |
DoD#0667  "Just a friend of the beast."      | banshee@ucscb.UCSC.EDU      |
2,3,5,7,13,17,19,31,61,89,107,127,521,607....| banshee@ucscb.BITNET        |
From: inyup@python.icsl.ucla.edu (Inyup Kang)
Newsgroups: fj.mail-lists.parallel
Subject: Asynchronous VLSI Design.
Date: 6 Apr 92 15:24:04 GMT
Article-I.D.: nttlab.283121
Distribution: fj

Hi, folks.

I'm going to start do research on the asynchronous VLSI design, 
somewhat biased to Signal Processing (because it's my schools emphasis),
and hopefully write the result on this research on my Ph.D. dissertation.
I have read the Seitz's, Sutherland's, and Jacobs'.
But not yet Molnar's (blame me for my laziness).
My question is 
	"The Asynchronous Stuff is still alive and remain fancy?"
	"Anybody do research on this topic?"

Any your help will be appreciated.
Please, reply to my e-mail address, then I will post the current status
of this stuff.

Take care of everything.
--
 Inyup Kang // inyup@icsl.ucla.edu, ..!(uunet,ucbvax)!icsl.ucla.edu!inyup
From: priol@irisa.fr (Thierry Priol)
Newsgroups: fj.mail-lists.parallel
Subject: Re: Raytracing on a CM
Date: 16 Apr 92 12:21:46 GMT
Distribution: fj

You may find some works on parallelizing the ray-tracing algorithm
on a connection machine in the following references:

@InProceedings(CROW88, 
        Author="F.C. Crow and G. Demos and J. Hardy and J. McLaughlin and K. Sims",
        Key="parallel",
        Title="3D Image Synthesis On the Connection Machine",
        Organization="University of Leeds,UK",
        BookTitle="Parallel Processing for Computer Vision and Display",
        Month="January",
        Year="1988")

@InProceedings(delany88,
        Author="H.C. Delany",
        Title="Ray Tracing On A Connection Machine",
        Address="Saint-Malo (France)",
        booktitle="1988 International Conference on Supercomputing",
        pages="659-667",
        month="June",
        year="1988")  

@TechReport(delany88,
        Author="H.C. Delany",
        Title="A Simple Hierarchical Ray Tracing Program for the Connection Machine System",
        Institution="TMC",
	number="VZ88-4"
        month="December",
        year="1988")  

@InProceedings(williams88,
        Author="N.S. Wiiliams, B.F. Buxton and H. Buxton"
        Title="Distributed Ray Tracing Using an SIMD processor Array",
        booktitle="NATO ASI Series, Vol F40, Theoretical Foundations of Computer Graphics and CAD"
        pages="703-725",
        year="1988")  


After reading these papers, one may ask the question "is SIMD architectures
is well suited for realistic image rendering algorithms ?". It's a
open question. I have an answer, but too much subjective! I worked
on parallel raytracing algorithms on MIMD architectures...

Thierry

-- 
Thierry PRIOL                                Phone:  99 84 72 10
IRISA / INRIA U.R. Rennes                    Fax:    99 38 38 32
Campus Universitaire de Beaulieu             Telex:  UNIRISA 950 473F
35042 RENNES CEDEX - FRANCE                  E-mail: priol@irisa.fr
From: alan@msc.edu (Alan Klietz)
Newsgroups: fj.mail-lists.parallel
Subject: Re: Raytracing on a CM
Date: 16 Apr 92 12:21:24 GMT
Distribution: fj

>>	Argh! The CM-2 is a SIMD machine. It implies that all processors must
>>do the same thing at the same time. As the ray trees will be quite different
>>from one pixel to another, (not even speaking of texture and shadow rays
>>computation), you will be in BIG trouble.
>
>Not necessarily.  Careful reorganization of the algorithms may let you
>take advantage of the CM-2.  Of course, this is just off the top of my
>head and not a statement based on a careful analysis of how well this
>problem maps to the CM architecture.

Actually it's pretty straightforward.  You assign a ray to each
virtual processor and then let them bounce around in the scene indepen-
dently.  The trick is minimizing the number of object/ray intersection 
tests. 

If you have a small number of objects (say 100 or less) the best
way is to broadcast the database.  This actually works quite well
since there is no interprocessor communication ("embarrassingly parallel")
and the CM is good at broadcasting information quickly.  You can 
raytrace a movie in near realtime this way.

If you have a large number of objects, you end up doing gathers
with each ray fetching an object that is 'nearby'.  The criteria
of 'nearness' is chosen with your favorite ray tree subdivision 
algorithm.  I used Goldmon & Salmon automatic boundary hierarchies with
convex quadrics for the boundaries (e.g. spheres for the sphereflake). 
Karl Sims and Hugh Delany have published work on SIMD octrees.  Other
subdivision algorithms would work as well.  The bottleneck is that
you ultimately end up doing a random GET (gather) operation for the rays
to fetch from the database, which tends to run slowly on the CM-2 for
large number of sources and destinations.

As an alternative, you could try an orthographic projection or 
spatial embedding and maybe use the NEWS grid, or you can punt and use
a machine with a fast random network like the CM-5.

--
Alan E. Klietz
Minnesota Supercomputer Center, Inc.
1200 Washington Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN  55415
Ph: +1 612 626 1737	       Internet: alan@msc.edu