From sbr@halcyon.com Tue Aug 17 20:01:34 1993 Received: from halcyon.com by toadflax.cs.ucdavis.edu (4.1/UCD.CS.2.3) id AA20363; Tue, 17 Aug 93 20:01:32 PDT Received: by halcyon.com id AA21752 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for announce@cs.ucdavis.edu); Tue, 17 Aug 1993 20:01:18 -0700 Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1993 20:01:18 -0700 From: Stephen Rondeau Message-Id: <199308180301.AA21752@halcyon.com> To: announce@cs.ucdavis.edu Subject: TorqueWare(TM) for the Amiga Product Announcement Status: RO Hope this is what you're looking for by way of announcements. Thanks. Stephen Rondeau, President, AugmenTek --------------- Cut here -------------------- TITLE TorqueWare(TM) for the Amiga(R) VERSION 1.0 COMPANY AugmenTek 3606 S. 180th St. C-22 SeaTac, WA 98188-4339 USA Contact: Stephen Rondeau Phone: 206-246-6077 email: sbr@halcyon.com AUTHOR Licensed from Torque Systems, Inc. TorqueWare is a trademark of Torque Systems, Inc. Amiga is a registered trademark of Commodore-Amiga, Inc. AmigaDOS and KickStart are trademarks of Commodore-Amiga, Inc. Linda is a registered trademark of Scientific Computing Associates. Ported to the Amiga, supported and sold by AugmenTek. This product includes software developed by the University of California, Berkeley and its contributors. DESCRIPTION TorqueWare for the Amiga is a programming tool that allows your program to: * run faster by using multiple processors, * share data among multiple processors/processes, * access data by partial content, and * be source-code portable to other TorqueWare-supported computers. TorqueWare can be thought of as a compiler extension that allows you to distribute computation and data within one or among more than one processors, as in a network of computers or (in the future) multiprocessor boards. By itself it does not, say, accelerate rendering or create software agents for you, but it provides the means by which rendering can be accelerated (tests show an almost linear speedup with raytracing code) and software agents can be developed and coordinated. Like a compiler, there is no good demonstration of its capabilities, since its utility depends on the creativity of the programmer. There are, however, two good books that provide some insight on how to program in parallel and possible uses of this programming model ('Mirror Worlds' by Gelernter). This programming tool is a simple but powerful way to build distributed programs, and is based on the Linda(R) programming model. It provides the means to coordinate multiple processes and access a global data space from one or more processors. A run-time system and six C function calls allow adding data to and removing/reading data from that global data space, and executing functions either remotely or locally. To change from running locally, where one develops and tests on one processor with multitasked processes, to running in a distributed fashion is simple and involves no recompilation or linking (unless you are running on a non-Amiga system). TorqueWare for the Amiga interoperates with other TorqueWare products available from Torque Systems, Inc. Their products run on Apple Macintosh computers, Silicon Graphics workstations, and other computers, and are accessible using just the Base Development System and Ethernet hardware. The Base Development System consists of the C preprocessor, standalone local link libraries, local and network support tools, example programs, a graphical user interface (to setup and start execution), and online documentation (including a tutorial). The local tools allow development of parallelized applications using multitasking on one computer; therefore, nearly all applications will run slower than their equivalent sequential versions. Creating a networked application for an all-Amiga (or mixed) network involves purchasing the networking add-on product for each additional CPU and setting some switches -- no coding change is generally required. The networked application will run faster than the local if there is a good deal more computation than communication. Some applications are simply more feasible to model and maintain in a distributed fashion rather than in a sequential one; speed may not be the only reason to distribute your application across a network. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS * AmigaDOS/Kickstart(TM) 2.04 or higher * Approximately 275KB RAM plus 85KB per local process, additional * SAS/C(R) compiler * General TCP/IP Networking add-on: - Networking hardware: Ethernet, Arcnet, serial port; parallel port (with Shareware plip.device) - About 150KB RAM plus 85KB per remote process PRICE All prices are in U.S. currency. Base Development System : $100. General TCP/IP Network add-on, per Amiga CPU: $200. Applicable tax and shipping/handling are not included in the list prices. DISTRIBUTABILITY Only items marked as being freely-redistributable are. All others are NOT distributable. Any object code or executable code that is linked with TorqueWare link libraries must be licensed by AugmenTek for distribution. There are no restrictions on distributing source code that contains TorqueWare calls, or resulting object code that is not linked with TorqueWare link libraries. This means that executable public domain, freeware/giftware, shareware, and demos (and possibly other forms of public software) that include executable TorqueWare calls to link libraries, managers, network listeners and servicers are not permitted.