A Simple Vector Language and its Portable Implementation

Many explicitly parallel languages have been proposed and implemented, but most such languages are complex and are targeted to specific parallel machines. The goal of this project was to design a very simple, explicitly parallel, programming language which could easily be implemented and ported to a wide variety of machines. The result was AJL, a structured language with deterministic vector-oriented parallelism. AJL programs are first compiled into assembly language instructions for an idealized parallel machine, then these assembly language instructions are macro expanded into C code which implements them for the actual target machine. Finally, the target machine’s “ native” C compiler is used to generate executable code. Macro definitions for “ generic” sequential machines have been implemented; macros for the PASM (PArtitionable Simd Mimd) prototype parallel computer are under development