🚀 go-pugleaf

In <27405@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU>  Madhan writes :

> Can someone tell me the exact definition of a dynamically
> reconfigurable machine.  I have 2 definitions:
> 
>  --  A machine, in which at any instant of time we could use a 
>     configuration of processors which is a subset of the configuration        >     of the the whole set of available processors in the system. 
>    (Or is this static reconfiguration as we do not really change the
>    underlying configuration)?
>
>  --  A machine in which the set of processors are reconfigured some
>      time during the execution of some program. That is, in this case, 
>      the underlying configuration of processors is changed in the 
>      middle of some program execution. (Is this possible at all) ?
>
> Which of the above definitons are correct ? 
>
> I would like to know if the Parsytec's transputer board with 16
> transpters supports dynamic reconfiguration as defined in my second
> definition above.



     I think the correct definition of a dynamically reconfigurable machine 
is the second one. It's a machine in which the connections between the 
processors (the links) are redistributed during the execution of some programs.
It means that the topology of the underlying network of processors is going to
change during the execution. For example you go from a ring to an hypercube
of processors during the same program and the utilisation of the same processors.

     The T-NODE machines have this kind of property. They are composed of a 
set of transputers and a switching network which changes during the program 
in order to meet the dynamic needs of transputer communications. But it seems 
very difficult to use this property and to program some T-NODE machines.

     The Parsytec's transputer board on which we work has a switching network
which is controlled by a small transputer : one T212, and a jumper of the board 
: the JP4 one, permits to communicate with this T212 by the frontal computer,
or by an external computer, or by one of the T800 transputer of the board.
We have never tried to make dynamic reconfiguration, but perhaps it's possible
to make if we control the T212 with a T800 of the network.

     Anyway it's very difficult to program parallel machines with dynamic
topologies.

Steph.


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Stephane  Vialle                                E-mail: steph@ese-metz.fr
Supelec Metz (ESE)                              Phone:  +33 87 74 99 38
Computer Science Departement                    Fax:    +33 87 76 95 49
2 rue Ed. Belin                                
F-57078 Metz Cedex 3
FRANCE
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