Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!gatech!hubcap!Wen-King From: wen-king@VLSI.CALTECH.EDU (Wen-King Su) Newsgroups: comp.hypercube Subject: Re: Remote C Compiler (Cosmic Environment) Message-ID: <314@hubcap.UUCP> Date: Fri, 17-Jul-87 08:43:41 EDT Article-I.D.: hubcap.314 Posted: Fri Jul 17 08:43:41 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 18-Jul-87 13:30:46 EDT Sender: fpst@hubcap.UUCP Lines: 69 Approved: hypercube@hubcap.clemson.edu In article <309@hubcap.UUCP> grunwald@M.CS.UIUC.EDU writes: >Tired of developing your iPSC applications on the 310? Want to use EMACS, RCS >and your other normal tools? > >Announcing, 'rcc', the remote C compiler server. Here in Caltech, we have been running a locally developed environment that reduces the 310 to merely an advanced device driver and compiler engine. We are not only able to compile cube applications from any hosts connected to our network, we are also able to allocate subcubes, run host programs, spawn cube programs, etc all without ever having to touch the 310 directly. Since the host programs run right on the Unix machine you are using, without any special arrangements, you can have your SUN3/160 display the Mandlebrot set generated by your cube; you write a host program that opens a SUN window and communicates with other cube processes as if itself is one of the cube processes. This environment, called the Cosmic Environment, brings together the cube and any network connected resources in a transparent way (upto the level of byte order compatibility). We have users working, compiling program, and running jobs from other departments, from across L.A., and all the way north to the state of Washington. Long distance computing is a bit slow however. This cube/software combo is very popular here and users sometimes resort to verbal abuse to get a share of the cube. For some time, Intel has worked to port this environment. The result is included in Intel's software distribution as part of the unsupported protocode package. We have not talked to them about this for a while and cooperation has wained on this. The main reason for the difficulty in porting Cosmic Environment to the current iPSC is that, due to historical reasons, our set of utilities and message functions are different from Intel's and the patch work gets a little messy. We shaped our software after what is available to us and how we use the machine. For example, since we do not have an extended memory machine and we do not have vector options, we could not add facilities in our environment to deal with of them. Part of what Intel did is try to modify the Cosmic Environment so that it handles these other options. Intel gives considerations to those who intend to run these cubes stand alone and write programs in fortran. We did not design in the support for either because our computing resources consist a network of Unix boxes and programmers who speak C as their second language. There is no right side on this, but I think there should have been more cooperation between us and Intel in the begining when the iPSC is still in development and we were trying to put together a generalized host environment. For the next generation cube, Intel gets to start over and we intend to get a better cooperation with them. We hope this environment or a later revision of it (after working it out with all interested parties), will set a standard that most vendors can agree on, easing the portability problem. I can't say on this, but I can tell you that we have a very good start on this. Right now, if you have a plain iPSC sitting on a network of 4.2BSD machines the latest Cosmic Environment is available for you on Unix tar tape or via ARPANET. Requests should be sent to: Dr. Charles L. Seitz Computer Science 256-80 California Institute of Technology California, 91125 Or by electronic mail to "chuck@vlsi.caltech.edu". I do not think I can post the software on the net because it approaches 1 megabyte in source form. Beside, the big brothers are watching. +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Wen-King Su wen-king@vlsi.caltech.edu Caltech Corp of Cosmic Engineers | +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+