Parsytec GmbH, the Munich, West German company that builds a parallel supercomputer built around multiple Inmos International Plc Transputers, is to release a parallel C compiler, Par.C, developed by the Dutch company Parsec NV. The intention is to give Transputer programmers an alternative to working in the Occam language that is effectively the Trasnputer assembler, although the parallel features of Occam have been embedded in C extensions. Par.C has a special run-time library, consisting of a mini-kernel running on each Transputer in the network, containing message passing utilities, memory management and some error handling. This enables the size and configuration of the network to be changed, whilst programs run the same, without having to be re-compiled or re-linked. Par.C itself is written in standard C, and the company says that it will be upgraded to recognise all additions to the ANSI C standard, and it can be compiled to run on any host machine, including ones based on the Transputer. Par.C also translates a number of added keywords, enabling the programmer to use parallelism without having to learn a new language. This method was chosen because Par.C generates optimal code without too many function calls, and putting parallelism directly into the C source code makes what is happening a lot clearer to those writing, re-writing and debugging programs. Parsytec is distributing Par.C as a package running under the Helios Unixalike operating system developed by Perihelion Ltd of Cambridge, and Megatool and other versions are also available.
