The ensemble system: concurrent programming on a personal computer

ABSTRACT

ENSEMBLE is a programmming system for writing concurrent programs on a personal computer (PC).ENSEMBLE consists of a library of Turbo Pascal¹ units to be used with applications written in the same language and executable on IBM PCs or compatibles under the MS-DOS² operating system. ENSEMBLE provides the programmer with a set of facilities and predefined abstractions that simplify the construction of concurrent programs. The main abstractions are coroutines and tasks.ENSEMBLE's main goal is to provide an environment that can be easily used by students for gaining experience in a wide variety of concurrent programming models and techniques. However, ENSEMBLE was designed to be also a satisfactory production tool for writing concurrent and real-time software on a PC.

REFERENCES

• 1: Gregory R. Andrews , Fred B. Schneider, Concepts and Notations for Concurrent Programming, ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR), v.15 n.1, p.3-43, March 1983 [doi>10.1145/356901.356903]
• 2: Ben Ari , M. Ben-Ari, Principles of Concurrent Programming, Prentice Hall Professional Technical Reference, 1982
• 3: G. L. Davies , A. Burns, The teaching language Pascal-FC, The Computer Journal, v.33 n.2, p.147-154, April 1990 [doi>10.1093/comjnl/33.2.147]
• 4: 4. M. Di Santo, G. Iannello: "ASK: a Kernel for Programming Actor Systems", 1990 ACM Symposium on Personal and Small Computers, Arlington, 28-30 march 1990.
• 5: David May, OCCAM, ACM SIGPLAN Notices, v.18 n.4, p.69-79, April 1983 [doi>10.1145/948176.948183]
• 6: 6. R.C. Holt, D.A. Penny: Concurrent Programming using The Turing Plus Language, University of Toronto, 1988.
• 7: 7. G. Kahn, D.B. MacQueen: "Coroutines and Networks of Parallel Processes" in Information Processing 77 (ed. B. Gilchrist), 993-998, North-Holland, 1977.
• 8: Charles E. McDowell , David P. Helmbold, Debugging concurrent programs, ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR), v.21 n.4, p.593-622, Dec. 1989 [doi>10.1145/76894.76897]
• 9: 9. H. Wettstein: "The Implementation of Synchronizing Operations in Various Environments", Software - Practice and Experience, 7, 115-126, 1977.
• 10: N. Wirth, Programming in Modula-2, Springer-Verlag Telos, 1983

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.1 PROGRAMMING TECHNIQUES

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.3 PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES
      D.3.2 Language Classifications

          Nouns: Turbo Pascal

  K. Computing Milieux
  K.8 PERSONAL COMPUTING

General Terms:
Design, Languages, Performance