The ICL-led Graph Reduction In Parallel, GRIP, project, funded under the UK government’s Alvey programme, will produce a parallel processing machine designed for declarative languages by the end of the year (CI No 750). The project collaborators, High Level Hardware and University College London along with ICL now has a fully simulated design with prototype components working. ICL says that the difference between this development and the existing parallel processors around is the way that it has been modified specifically to run declarative languages, avoiding the usual stumbling block with parallel machines that they are difficult to program. Graph reduction is a process that generates a number of tasks or branches from one instruction, which can be carried out in parallel – unlike traditional programming methods which use a sequential approach with only one instruction being carried at out at a time. Although sequential machines can run declarative languages the attraction of parallel machines is that they usually offer better price-performance. The GRIP has four Motorola 68020 processors on each processor board – the pioneering BBN Advanced Computers Butt-erfly machine uses a similar arrangement of 68020s – and ICL says that prototype boards are already working. Eventually the group intends to plug in up to 20 boards but initially only 10 will be used. When the parallel processing machine is ready it will be front-ended by a High Level Hardware Unix-based Or-ion system. The prototype will be the basis for a programme of experimental work on the capabilities and use of this type of machine which will be carried out at University College London during the remaining year of the project. A second prototype will be used by a research group at the University of Essex which is developing a logic language for parallel processors and will port it to the GRIP. ICL anticipates that customers with decision and financial modelling problems as well as computer-aided design applications will be the main customers for the product.
