Class 1: LSC Examples

Announcements:

1. Alberto has placed the LSC manuals in the Ed Cluster Lab. Please refer to them there, but do not remove them from the lab. I overestimated the number of copies I had (I have many of one of the manual, but only one of the other), so I won't be able to place another copy in the library just yet.

In today's class, we will look at another example from Dan Hyde's LSC Handbook. This example shows how to write SPMD code in LSC. It also shows how to time sections of program in LSC, and how to send and receive complete arrays from one transputer to another.

Notice that the optional text for the course, Laboratories for Parallel Computing provides a nice introduction to some of the issues we are discussing. In addition to this, it also has discussions of problems that some of you might encounter in your projects (issues like matrix multiplication, producer/consumer problem, various sorts and searches, numerical algorithms like Simpson's rule, etc.). The programs for these examples are also available.

Next, we look at some common pitfalls and quirks of LSC that you need to be aware of. This material is also from the LSC Handbook.