CiNii Books - Occam 2

This book presents a structured introduction to Occam 2, the parallel programming language specifically designed for the novel architecture microprocessor, the Transputer, designed and developed by Inmos Ltd. The advent of the Transputer has allowed a much greater awareness and access to parallel computing. The aim of the book is to give a concise description of this new language. The text assumes that the reader has some knowledge of a programming language, for example, Pascal. The level is suitable for undergraduate and postgraduate students taking a course in parallel programming, although anyone with a knowledge of programming should have no difficulty in following the text. Each Occam concept is illustrated with an Occam program fragment example. The book is organized so that information given in the early chapters is used and reinforced in later chapters. A concious decision was made to omit detailed syntax definitions from the text. The contents of the book grew out of a course which the author gave to undergraduates at the University of Buckingham in the autumn of 1987. Chapters one to nine contain a description of the basics of Occam 2, introduced in a structured way so that the reader is gradually informed of each feature. Each of these chapters contains a number of exercises. The reader is encouraged to attempt these exercises so that the instruction contained in the text may be reinforced by practice. Chapter ten explains how an occam program may be distributed over a network of transputers, whilst chapter 11 explores how Occam can be used to develop parallel solutions to real problems via the algorithmic, geometric and process farming paradigms. The examples used in Chapter 11 have been adapted by permission of Inmos Ltd. The final chapter, Chapter 12, contains a description of the Inmos Transputer Development System (TDS). Although TDS is part of the Occam ethos and most readers will probably use TDS for the development of Occam programs, this book is primarily concerned with Occam 2, and TDS is not part of the Occam 2 definition. Hence the description of TDS was left to the last.

Table of Contents

Part 1 Occam and the transputer: occam
the transputer
the origins of Occam. Part 2 Occam basics: primitive processes
the SEQ construct
the PAR construct
the ALT construct
nested constructs
two-way channel communication
deadlock
SKIP and STOP
termination of occam programs
comments in Occam programs. Part 3 Identifiers, data types, literals and specifications: identifiers
data types
literals
special and non-printable characters
specifications
channel specification
scope. Part 4 Operators: arithmetic operators
relational operators
boolean operators
bitwise operators
shift operators. Part 5 Arrays: one-dimensional arrays
multi-dimensional arrays
array subscripts
segments
strings
size of arrays
array elements
tables. Part 6 Constructs: alternation construct
conditional construct
selection construct
repetition construct. Part 7 Replicators: replicated SEQ
replicated PAR
replicated ALT
replicated IF
segments for efficiency
processes as data structures. Part 8 Abbreviations, procedures and functions: abbreviations
abbreviations for efficiency
retyping
procedures
functions
function definitions. Part 9 Channel protocols: simple protocol
protocol names
sequential protocol
variant protocol
special protocol. Part 10 Timers, priority, memory allocation and ports: priority
placement
ports. Part 11 Configuration: placed PAR
processor
inter-transputer links. Part 12 Approaches to writing parallel programs in occam: algorithmic
geometric
farm
efficiency factors. Part 13 The transputer development system: the folding editor
compiling Occam programs
TDS libraries
other features of TDS.

by "Nielsen BookData"

Occam 2

Author(s)

Bibliographic Information

Available at 3 libraries

Search this Book/Journal

Note

Description and Table of Contents

Details

Export