The SuperPascal software

Abstract

Pascal is still the most widely used programming language in computer science textbooks. Building on that tradition I have developed SuperPascal as a publication language for parallel scientific computing. SuperPascal extends a subset of IEEE Standard Pascal with deterministic statements for parallel processes and synchronous message passing. Recursive procedures may be combined with parallel statements. A tutorial illustrates the parallel features of SuperPascal by examples [1]. The language report defines the syntax and semantics concisely [2]. The book Studies in Computational Science includes the complete SuperPascal text of portable multicomputer programs for linear equations, n-body simulation, matrix multiplication, all-pairs shortest paths, sorting, fast Fourier transforms, simulated annealing, prireality testing, Laplace's equation, and forest fire simulation [3]. A portable implementation of SuperPascal has been developed on a Sun workstation under Unix. It consists of a compiler and an interpreter written in Pascal. To obtain the SuperPascal software, use anonymous FTP from the directory pbh at top.cis.syr, edu. The software includes a user manual [4], and software notes [5]. At Syracuse University, the book and the software have been used in a course on "The Art of Multicomputer Programming."