Newsgroups: comp.parallel
From: "R. Kerr" <R.Kerr@ncl.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Network Processing and Linda
Organization: University of Newcastle upon Tyne
Date: Fri, 6 Jan 1995 17:24:48 GMT
Message-ID: <3edtvu$h8t@whitbeck.ncl.ac.uk>

Arthur Ferruzzi (aaf@netcom.com) wrote:
> ...............
> ...............
>
> I also remember seeing a reference to commercial Linda, and the possibility
> that a free version exists. If anyone has any pointers to these, they would
> be appreciated.

We have been using Scientific Associates' Network Linda for some time. 
SCA's address is: 

   One Century Tower,
   265 Church Street,
   New Haven,
   CT 06520-7010.

   Tel. (203) 777 7442

   E-mail: software@sca.com, lsupport@sca.com

When we bought our Linda package, SCA were offering 80% academic discounts
(on capital purchase - maintenance does not attract such a good discount). 

We have found this product to be of good quality. In particular, its
debugging/diagnostic facilities must be among the best around for this
type of parallel platform. 


> Being a University site, we would probably get a decent discount on the
> commercial version. I am always interested in freeware, however, and
> would love to hear about a free version of Linda. 

There may still be a public domain Linda system at ariadne.csi.forth.gr
under posybl/POSYBL-1.102.TAR.Zposybl/POSYBL-1.102.TAR.Z. I think I looked
at this some time ago and found it not to be "pure" Linda in the sense
that tuple fields had to be qualified by their types. This difference
relates to one of the fundamental differences between Linda and PVM, the
latter requiring, in effect, type specifications for message packing. This
requirement is rather error-prone. 

Also, I believe that the PD Linda does not enjoy the debugging facilities
of SCA's Network Linda. The value of these should not be underestimated. 

I also have a record of GLENDA, a PVM-based Linda implementation in the 
seabass.st.usm.edu FTP archive. I haven't checked this one out.

Cheers....Ron 

------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Ron Kerr, Computing Service, Newcastle University, NE1 7RU, England.
 Tel. +44 191 222 8187       Fax. +44 191 222 8765  (NOTE new area code)
------------------------------------------------------------------------




