Experience with multi-transputer Ada

The transputer is one of the most cost‐effective multicomputer components to buy, but still one of the hardest to program. Even if the parts of a program that are destined for individual transputers are programmed in a familiar high‐level language (Ada or Fortran or C), users are forced to be aware of occam when connecting transputers together with harnesses. Moreover, the design of parallel and distributed algorithms is in itself a challenging field. This paper describes experience with using the Alsys Ada compiler on single and multiple transputer configurations, and considers whether Ada makes it any easier to gain access to the power of multi‐transputers. Early performance figures indicate that Ada running on transputer arrays compares favourably with the speed of other languages. An assessment of the impact of the proposed Ada 9X support for distribution is made