This Part has had some duplicate material removed.
| Grant Holder | Award K pounds |
Duration |
|---|---|---|
| S Abramsky and Dr T S Maibaum | 88.9 | July 84 - June 87 |
| Prof K 0 Baker | 89.7 | July 83 - June 86 |
| Dr H Barringer, I 0 Cottam and Prof C B Jones | 132.7 | Oct 83 - Sept 86 |
| Dr H Barringer and Prof C B Jones | 47.4 | Feb 83 - Jan 86 |
| Prof P J Brown | 5.2 | Oct 83 - Sept 86 |
| Dr C J Burgess | 41.1 | May 82 - April 85 |
| Prof R M Burstall | 131.1 | July 82 - June 85 |
| Prof R M Burstall, A J R G Milner and Dr M P Atkinson | 190.1 | March 83 - March 87 |
| Dr M Clint | 60.0 | Apr 83 - March 86 |
| I 0 Cottam and Prof C B Jones | 64.1 | Oct 82 - Sept 85 |
| Dr J B H duBoulay | 30.3 | July 84 - June 87 |
| B J Edwards, P M Livingstone and J M Trianc | 114.7 | Feb 83 - Feb 86 |
| R M Gallimore and D Coleman | 61.1 | June 83 - June 85 |
| R M Gallimore and D Coleman | 27.1 | Dec 82 - Nov 85 |
| Dr M J C Gordon | 9.5 | Jan 82 - Dec 85 |
| Dr M J C Gordon | 22.2 | Jan 83 - Dec 84 |
| Dr M J C Gordon | 9.0 | Aug 83 - Aug 84 |
| Dr F K Hanna | 32.5 | Feb 83 - July 86 |
| Prof P Henderson | 10.7 | Oct 83 - Sept 84 |
| Dr M A Hennell | 65.7 | Oct 82 - Sept 85 |
| Dr M C B Hennessy | 25.2 | July 83 - June 85 |
| Dr A J Herbert | 232.0 | Oct 83 - Sept 86 |
| Dr A J Herbert | 90.0 | Jan 84 - Dec 86 |
| Prof C A R Hoare and J E Stoy | 129.7 | Sept 81 - Aug 84 |
| Prof C A R Hoare, J E Stoy and B Sufrin | 255.4 | sept 83 - Aug 87 |
| Dr D G Jenkins and Dr M K Crowe | 176.6 | Sept 83 - Aug 86 |
| Dr C H Lindsay | 0.9 | Jan 84 - Feb 84 |
| Dr T S E Maibaum | 77.4 | Nov 82 - Oct 85 |
| Prof A 0 McGettrick | 11.2 | Oct 83 - Sept 84 |
| Prof A J R G Milner | 74.9 | Jan 82 - March 85 |
| Prof I C Pyle and Prof I C Wand | 165.0 | July 82 - July 85 |
| Prof I C Pyle and Prof I C Wand | 32.2 | Sept 81 - Aug 84 |
| Dr C R Snow | 95.7 | Sept 83 - Aug 86 |
| Dr F N Teskey and S C Holden | 78.0 | Sept 83 - Sept 86 |
| Dr R J Thomas | 29.2 | April 83 - March 84 |
| J M Triance | 71.5 | Nov 82 - Nov 84 |
| J M Triance | 26.4 | March 81 - Aug 84 |
| Dr P J L Wa1lis | 35.3 | Nov 82 - Nov 84 |
| Prof I C Wand | 111.1 | Oct 83 - Sept 86 |
| Dr N H White and Dr K H Bennett | 3.9 | Dec 82 - Nov 84 |
| Total | 2954.7 |
| Grant Holder | Award K pounds |
Duration |
|---|---|---|
| Dr K D Baker | 61.3 | Jan 83 - June 83 |
| Dr H Barringer and Prof C B Jones | 2.9 | Feb 82 - Jan 83 |
| Prof R M Burstall | 106.4 | Oct 79 - Dec 82 |
| Dr J Darlington | 33.4 | June 80 - May 83 |
| Dr M A Hennell | 104.3 | Oct 80 - Sept 83 |
| Prof C B Jones | 8.1 | Aug 83 - Sept 83 |
| Dr A D McGetterick | 18.9 | Nov 81 - Oct 83 |
| Prof A J R G Milner | 28.0 | April 80 - March 83 |
| Dr G D Plotkin | 36.4 | Oct 80 - Sept 83 |
| Prof I C Pyle and Prof I C Wand | 113.1 | Oct 79- Jan 83 |
| Prof I C Pyle and Prof I C Wand | 255.4 | Aug 80 - July 83 |
| Dr R J Thomas and J A Kirkham | 20.5 | Jan 80 - Dec 82 |
| Dr P J L Wallis | 18.6 | March 813 - Aug 83 |
| Total | 807.6 |
The Software Technology Initiative has obtained the following Incoming Visiting Fellowships.
| Host | Visiting Fellow | Award K Pounds |
Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prof R M Burstall, Edinburgh University | Prof H Reichel | 3.6 | May 82 - July 82 |
| Prof A J R G Milner, Edinburgh University | Dr R Sokolowski | 13.9 | Nov 82 - Oct 83 |
| Prof M Lehman, Imperial College | Prof W M Turski | 23.9 | Sept 82 - Aug 83 |
| Prof C A R Hoare, Oxford University | S A Schumna | 11.1 | Sept 82 - Aug 83 |
The aims of the STI include the reduction of duplicated effort and the production of software and hardware which are of general benefit to the majority of STI investigators. Often the production of such items is more of a development task than a pure research exercise. In such cases, the STI Panel can ask the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory to draw up a suitable contract between the Laboratory and a university or industrial company to develop such a specific product. These agreements are called EMR (Extra Mural Research) contracts.
| EMR Holder | Project | Award K Pounds |
|---|---|---|
| Prof R Needham | Modula 2 | 7.9 |
| Prof I C Pyle and Prof I C Wand | Ada Compiler | 41.0 |
| Prof G Shepherd and Prof A D McGettrick | Stanford Pascal Verifier | 15.0 |
| Prof J Welsh | ISO Pascal Plus | 4.9 |
| Prof I C Wand | Perq X25 | 10.0 |
The STI Panel sponsors a series of meetings to promote cooperation between individual STI funded researchers and communication between STI funded projects and industry, Government Establishments and other research groups.
The STI Panel sponsors three types of meeting. Special Interest Groups (SIGs), Workshops and Colloquia.
These are small informal one-day meetings of up to 30 people drawn from STI projects plus a few invited guests. The purpose of SIGs is to provide a vehicle for lively, technical discussions of state-of-the-art problems and current research ideas.
Workshops are one or two-day meetings for up to 100 people drawn primarily from the STI Programme but containing a significant (say 30%) number of outside participants. Workshops are aimed at presenting work on current STI projects to a more general audience i.e. those researchers in the STI Programme not directly studying the topic and other academic and industrial interested parties.
A Colloquium is intended to be a meeting of upwards of 100 people at which some major achievements of the STI Programme are presented to the world at large. No STI Colloquia has yet been held.
SIGs do not usually produce proceedings. Workshops usually produce proceedings in the form of a university departmental report. These are circulated to participants and the STI investigators via the STI Newsletter.
| Date | Subject | Host | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| July 83 | Ada Tools | Bath | Workshop |
| Nov 82 | D Craigen | RAL | Workshop |
| Sept 83 | Hope Tutorial | Imperial | Workshop |
| Nov 82 | LCF | Newcastle | Workshop |
| Nov 82 | Newcastle Connection | Newcastle | Workshop |
| Mar 83 | Program Specifications and Verifications (York FACS) | York | Workshop |
Equipment in the pool is loaned to investigators following authorisation from the Panel.
Holders of STI PERQs are as follows:
| Name | Location | Quantity |
|---|---|---|
| A G Hay | UMIST | 3 |
| I C Wand | York | 3 |
| D Shepherd | Lancaster | 1 |
| B Randell | Newcastle | 4 |
| I Cottam | Manchester | 1 |
| C A R Hoare | Oxford | 1 |
| A Herbert | Cambridge | 1 |
| T Hopkins | Kent | 1 |
| M Raskovsky | Oxford | 1 |
| P Brown | Kent | 2 |
| R W Witty | RAL | 2 |
The STI infrastructure plan consists of equipping a typical STI group with a Multi-User Mini (MUM) acting as support to a set of Single User Systems (SUS). The SUSs used will be in line with the Council's Common Base Policy (CSP). Both MUM and SUSs will run the common software base and be linked together by CBP network equipment and protocols.
The Software Technology Initiative is establishing an infrastructure, containing the SERC's Common Base Policy (CBP), which will form the framework within which to research and develop the first and second IPSEs (integrated project support environments) as outlined in the STI's research policy and the Alvey Report.
In outline the SE Infrastructure envisaged will consist of a powerful multi user mini (MUM) Unix system linked by high speed local area network to a set of high performance Single User UNIX Systems (SUS) running the Common Software Base and Communication protocols.
In more detail the SE Infrastructure envisaged will comprise:
| Item | Content | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| SE Research Tools | ML, HOPE, LCF Ada, Modula-2, Affirm, Stanford Pascal Verifier, Boyer-Moore, Iota, LISP, Prolog, Pop-2 |
Lisp, Prolog and POP-2 as recommended by IKBS |
| Languages | Pascal, Fortran 77 | ISO Standard Pascal, ANSI Standard Fortran 77 |
| Graphics | GKS | BSI and Draft ISO |
| Operating System | UNIX | 32 bit, virtual memory |
| Computers | 32-bit SUS and 32-bit MUM | Current CBP m/c is PERQ |
| Servers | Not yet available | |
| Local Area Network | Cambridge Ring Ethernet |
UK CR82 standard when approved by CBP |
| Wide Area Network | X25 | SERCnet and PSS |
| Protocols | JNT Coloured Books | UK academic standards |
The following gives a more detailed exposition of the technical components and philosophy of the policy.
The following list contains those tools which are known to be of interest to several groups of researchers and therefore would benefit from wider availability via the SE infrastructure. The list should be regarded as provisional.
The recommended CBP PERQ configuration is
1 Mbyte main memory 16K writeable control store 24 Mbyte disk tablet puck (3 button 'mouse') LAN interface X25 front end (one per installation) 1 Mbyte floppy 100 Pixel per inch A4 display
For further details see CBP Appendix.
The IPSE requires not only high performance SUS for highly interactive tools but also major computational power (verifiers), storage (database, backup) and peripherals (printer, communications, tape deck, archiving). It is proposed that each research department engaged in a significant amount of SERC SE research have a MUM to compliment the SUSs. The MUM must run the same Common Software Base as the SUS. The MUM is a necessary infrastructure component because
The envisaged SE Infrastructure MUM configuration is
Powerful, multi-user minicomputer eg GEC series 63, VAX 4-8 Mbytes main memory 500-1000 Mbytes secondary memory 9 track 1600 bpi tape deck Line printer, upper and lower case Documentation quality printer (till Laser Printer LAN server) Local area network connection Wide area network connection (till LAN server) 5 conventional VDUs (+5 PERQs)
The MUM/UNIX system is envisaged as being accessible to 5 users via conventional terminals and to 5 users via high performance SUS PERQ/UNIX systems, via a high speed local area network. Peripherals, including a laser printer and wide area communications, will be shared by all (SUS + MUM) systems through LAN servers eventually and via the MUM in the short term.
Such a distributed computing system will consist of 6 UNIX systems connected via file transfer and remote login facilities based on the JNT coloured book protocols. It is envisaged that more unified, logically integrated (remember the IPSE target), physically distributed UNIX software environment will come into operation in the mid 80s as a result of non-UK work, the SERCs DCS Programme and general UK progress towards the IPSE.
The appearance in the market place of cheap high powered single user computer systems with good interactive capabilities via high precision displays, linked together by high speed local area networks, heralds a completely new way for most SERC Investigators to achieve the major part of their computing requirements.
Within the next few years, many such systems will be available from different manufacturers. Consequently there is a likelihood of many different systems being purchased into the SERC environment leading to a great deal of duplication of basic software development.
SERC sees a need for a coordinated development plan to ensure that the UK makes the best use if its finances and of its limited manpower. The SERC has therefore decided on a strategy of creating a common hardware and software base for software development which will encompass all scientific subject areas. Briefly the common software base will be Pascal and Fortran running under Unix operating system implemented on the common hardware base of PERQ single user computers linked locally by Cambridge Rings and nationally by the X25 wide area network systems (SERCnet and PSS).
SERC Subject Committees will participate in the implementation of this policy by enabling central purchasing of PERQs for grant holders to be done via Central Computing Committee and by ensuring that investigators use the PERQ in all appropriate circumstances as well as encourage them to follow the common base software development policy. The Common Base Policy is not the same as standardisation, however, and it will evolve as the state of the art improves.
The whole academic community, not just Computer Science, is a major user and developer of software and so the degree of ease with which software can be developed affects the scientific productivity of many researchers.
The SERC has approved a plan to increase the productivity of scientific research requiring computing by:
Currently the academic software technology base is very non-uniform in that the knowledge, experience, tools, techniques and equipment vary considerably between projects. The motivation to create a common Hardware and Software Base is to bring together all of the best existing tools, packages and techniques into a uniform framework so that the whole is more effective than the sum of diverse parts. This will be achieved via EMR contracts to move existing software into the common base, specific purchases, the direct results of SERC research projects using the common base equipment and the snowball effort that will be generated as a natural consequence of providing a state of the art hardware base. A good example of the common base snowball effect is the widespread use of the Unix operating system which has enabled a large number of software tools to be made available throughout the UK academic community.
The Common Base Policy briefly consists of:
The SERC wish the common software base to be the Unix operating system and the common hardware base to be the PERQ. The PERQs should be networked together via Cambridge Rings, SERCnet and PSS to allow widespread cooperation between users and developers. This combination of software and hardware is widely accepted as being the best combination for developing software in the coming years. A common base, however, does not imply rigid standardisation.
Computer technology develops at a rapid pace and it is expected that the next few years will see the cost of single user systems decline and their quality and capability increase. Therefore today's PERQ is seen as only the first machine forming the common hardware base. The common base will develop over the coming years.
In outline the Common Base Policy comprises
The following gives a more detailed exposition of the technical components and philosophy of the policy.
Pascal and Fortran 77 have been chosen as they are the two most popular scientific languages. They possess the properties of portability and official standard definitions. There is a large amount of software already written in them which allows people to make use of existing investment.
There will be considerable support for Fortran 77 and Pascal. This will take the form of software tools and techniques developed by the Software Technology Initiative and the activities of the SERC Computing Service team. Thus the CBP will act as a focus for many different activities.
The technical definition of Pascal is given in (ref 1).
The technical definition of Fortran 77 is given in (ref 2).
Other languages will be available with the set of software tools in the CBP. For instance the Unix C language is already available and Ada is under development by York. LISP and Prolog are being implemented.
These other languages will not receive the same degree of support and tool development as Pascal and Fortran. They are not blessed. This situation must be reviewed regularly. Specific minority groups eg Ada community will receive minority support through individual committees eg STI.
Evolution of status from other to blessed is possible.
It is a requirement of the CBP that blessed languages should be interworkable at the procedure call level ie. a Pascal program can call a Fortran subroutine which can call a Pascal procedure etc. This is a vital capabi1ity to ensure maximum use of standard components. It is ridiculous to have to, say, reimplement a Fortran graphics package in Pascal because Pascal cannot call Fortran.
Interworking has implications for compiler construction and operating system development. It has its limitations and difficulties, eg the difficulties in enforcing type checking across procedure interfaces, but its benefits outweigh its drawbacks. (Reference Tony William's paper).
Inline with the policy of supporting international standards and portability aids the CBP has blessed GKS 7.2 as its basic graphics package. GKS will be available on all SERC machines, not just the PERQ, to help the transfer of graphics software and, via metafile standards, pictures themselves.
There will have to be a significant amount of software mounted on top of GKS to give the scientist the graphics facilities he requires. Much of this graphics library porting work will be led by RAL's Graphics Section.
The technical definition of GKS is given in (ref 3).
The technical definition of metafile standards is under development by ISO.
Unix is already a de facto standard in many academic institutions in both USA and UK. It has enabled a great deal of software to be shared amongst research groups and has built up a large quantity of. widely applicable software.
Unix is being used increasingly by industry again both in the USA and UK. The CBP philosophy is based on the following properties of Unix.
For the scientific community Unix is likely to become the standard small machine operating system because small machines seem to get bigger every day!
The CBP Unix has the following properties
The technical specification of Unix is given in (ref 4).
There are several versions of Unix, either in existence or soon to be announced. These include Berkeley 4.1 and 4,2, System III and System V.
The CBP philosophy is to run the same, stable version of Unix on all the different types of hardware supported by the CBP ie only one version of Unix will be supported by SERC.
There must be a balance between the benefits of new developments and the benefits of stability and standardisation. Thus moving to a new version of Unix will be a major evolutionary step for CBP, especially and when more than one CPU type is involved.
The PERQ was and is the first machine which satisfies the requirement for a high performance single user system (see Appendix A). Other machines are likely to follow (some are already here). The expected proliferation of machines will tend to fragment the software development activities because some things will always be machine specific. The Council therefore wishes to balance the benefits of standardisation (which acts against change) with the need to give state of the art facilities to scientists (which requires change). The future CBP is therefore expected to include more than just today's PERQ but such changes must be taken infrequently and given very careful consideration beforehand.
It should be borne in mind that the criteria for choosing a single user system must be that it runs the common software base rather than some new hardware feature. The investment in software is already so large that computers must be purchased which run the Council's software rather than the Council's money be wasted on reimplementing existing software on some new hardware. Manufacturers will have to understand the changing balance of power between them and their customers. The manufacturer independence of Unix is a key factor in this equation.
The recommended CBP PERQ configuration is:
PERQ: 1 Mbyte main memory 16K writable control store 24 Mbyte disk tablet puck (3 button 'mouse') LAN interface X25 front end (one per installation for connection with WAN) 1 Mbyte floppy disk 100 pixels per inch A4 display
For advice on peripherals such as printers suitable for use with PERQ contact CBP User Support at RAL.
The technical specification of the PERQ is given in (ref 5, ref 6).
The CBP requires a fast local area network to link its machines together. The Cambridge Ring has been chosen because it is
The technical specification of the Cambridge Ring is given in (ref 7).
The Cambridge Ring is not the only LAN currently available, but has been chosen as the CBP LAN for the above reasons.
There are several different types of Ethernet and Token Ring LANs available or soon to be announced. The IEEE 802 standard initiative is having beneficial influence but has yet to be adopted as an ISO standard.
The CBP will therefore stay with the Cambridge Ring and its associated CR82 protocols until the world wide LAN developments have stabilised sufficiently to enable the evolutionary step to be made.
Where a campus has installed an X25 system to act as a LAN then the SUS can access this via the hardware and software given under the Wide Area Network section, ie X25 campus LANs are blessed by the CBP.
The long term objective of the CBP is to exploit the advantages of distributed computing and LANs which can be realised as Servers. The following Server requirements can be identified as desirable but not yet delivered as service equipment. There is an urgent need to develop such servers into commercial products.
There is a requirement for sophisticated, high quality (at least 300 pixels per inch) text and graphics printing capability to complement the Single User System's display. Examples are hardcopy of scientific papers (camera ready including diagrams), graphical software tool output, mathematical text (proofs) and so on.
It is envisaged that this need will be met by small, relatively cheap (10K) laser printers, one per department, configured as a LAN server. Until this technology is readily available (1984?) such items as Diablo daisy wheel printers and Versatek graphics devices are suggested (Contact RAL CBP team for advice).
It is seen that a LAN to X25 (SERCnet and PSS) gateway will be met by the most cost effective way of connecting a number of machines to the WAN. No products are currently available.
Multiple campus LANs, whether the same type or not, are 1ikely to arise with the consequential need to connect one LAN to another.
No products are currently available.
Single User systems cannot hold all of the data to which a single user requires access. Nor can a SUS handle file backup archiving requirements.
In the short term the CBP recommends that SUS are not used stand-alone but are connected to multi-user machines with suitable peripherals to allow file access and archiving.
The more desirable solution is to have file and/or archive servers. No products are currently available.
The CBP requires a national wide area network to link both people and machines. The network must be compatible with JNT/NMC policy. The current CBP uses SERCnet and PSS which are technically compatible X25 networks linked by a gateway.
The CBP also requires access to Europe (including Scandinavia) and the USA. Such links are not all easily available.
The PERQ-X25 connection, in the short term, will be via the York LSI-11 transport service front end original1y designed for the PDP-l1. Studies are in hand for in-board solutions.
The technical specification of SERCnet X25 network is given in (ref 8).
The protocol strategy is based on the de facto UK academic standards approved by the SERC/CB JNT in their coloured books. The adoption of the Wide Area Network protocols of the transport service and above for the local area network use gives a useful unification of LAN/WAN facilities. The average user sees only one and the same mechanism to move files, mail etc between machines independent of distance (ie local or wide area net). The adoption of transport service also gives a degree of hardware independence for local area networks.
The use of wide area protocols for local area networks is conservative in that it does not allow various advantages of LANs to be exploited eg speed, reliability. More LAN specific (light weight) protocols could be employed for high speed intermachine interaction (eg remote process execution). Such protocols should only be blessed if they attain a measure of widespread acceptability. Specific research projects are likely to require lightweight protocols. They should not be discouraged in appropriate circumstances.
Transport Service around the Ring is implemented by TSBSP (Transport Byte Stream Protocol) running above BBP (Basic Block Protocol). These are de facto UK academic Ring standard protocols based on Cambridge University's work.
Currently the JNT are having the Mace built by Orbis which will be a high speed intelligent interface having TSBSP and BBP in it so providing a DMA transport service to its host.
The protocols specifications are in (refs 9-15).
Electronic Mail as implemented over the Grey Book is an extremely useful facility. However, experimental work at various sites in the world has shown the potential advantages of more sophisticated facilities above simple mail. Such facilities include message based conference and public electronic bulletin boards.
No ISO approved or de facto standards exist in these developing areas. The CBP could possibly evolve to include such facilities.
The JNT coloured books and the CR82 Ring protocols are not ISO standards nor are likely to be. It will be necessary eventually to change the protocols on both WAN and LANs in the light of current development work on protocols to whatever emerge as international standards. This will be a major change for the entire network community and will not come quickly.
Fortran 77 and Pascal allow PERQ CBP software to be moved to and from other computers. However it is recognised that even when programs are written in Fortran 77 and Pascal much work often has to be done to move them because of the inbuilt operating system dependencies. By using 32 bit, virtual memory Unix as a de facto standard execution environment it should be much easier to move programs in Pasca1 and Fortran 77 from one CBP Unix system to another.
Portability is also one of the reasons for backing national and international standards generally, hence the use of the GKS graphics package. GKS will be available on all SERC supported machines.
Portability of software is also one of the aims of the networking side of the CBP. Good communications are needed if software is to be easily shared by geographical dispersed research groups.
The CBP is expected to be expanded to include some items related to specific applications. These might possibly be the NAG library, RAL graphics library etc as well as software development tools from the STI, IKBS etc. In addition much applications specific software will be generated on top of the CBP and which will be generally available but which will not actually be part of CBP. The CBP is supposed to form the base not the totality of available software.
