2 Dec
2003
2 Dec
'03
7:14 p.m.
I think this is worth saving. To quote one of the referenced Docs:
Parallel Fortran (FORTRAN-PLUS) is supported, a goal is to support Fortran
90 and Parallel C.
These systems seem to be very typical of the SIMD architectures studied in
class. Note from above the presence of a MCU. The PEs are said to each
have its own part of an array memory ? sounds like a distributed memory system.
These machines seem to have been built in 1988. The DAP Gamma was released
in 1997. The company?s home page did not respond, yet data sheets were
available for their computers (Hmmm). At the time that the web document was
written (1998), there were 115 DAPS installed worldwide. I expect that these
machines are still in use.
These machines were geared for large-scale signal and image processing.
Other applications include molecular modeling and fluid flow. Fast text data
base searching seems to be a market area that they have had some other
success in.
The host or front end determines the OS, typically Unix or VMS. The host
is typically a Sun workstation.
Current works invovles a HiPPI interface. The DAP utilizes a high speed
data channel that supports transfers at rates up to 70Mbyte/Sec. Transfers
between memory and processors varies between models but is between 1280
Mbyte/Sec and 5120 Mbyte/Sec.
This is a true SIMD machine.
I want I want but it is not possible. Someone should save this. It is a full
rack mount system that uses either a Sun workstation or a VAX as a front end.
Connects by SCSI and uses the front end OS, nice.
Paxton
Astoria, OR
>> These machines were built by Cambridge Parallel Processing Inc.
> (formerly Actime Memory Technology Ltd.) The Gamma II was based on Distributed
> Array processor (DAP) technology. These SIMD machines utilize Processing
> Elements (PEs) combined with 8-bit coprocessor for floating point speedup. As is
> typical of SIMD architectures, the PEs are controlled by a Master Control
> Unit (MCU) that reads instructions from a separate code store. This processor
> doubles as a scalar processor. The DAP 500 has 32X32 PEs = 1024 that are
> clocked at 10MHz. The DAP models operate according to a 100ns cycle time.
> This machine supports variable length matrix operations.
>
The DAP 610 has 64X64 PEs....10MHz