A method for providing a node address uniquely identifies a process to be separately addressed and dispatched in a uniprocessor or multiprocessor environment. A single processor (14) identified by a unique primary node may include a single node of multiple processes (50), multiple subnodes of processes which do not replicate all of the processes in the subnode, or multiple subnodes with multiple processes replicated in each of said subnodes. Multiple processors (14), (64) and (66) may be joined by a communication data buss (60) to form a network of processors in which any processor may assign a work request to a process in its own or any other processor of the network to efficiently schedule work requests queued to any process in the network of processors.
An interprocess data transfer facility provides transfer of data between two processes. Work requests are represented by notes that are placed on a queue of a server process for performing the work. The requestor process which created a work request does not transfer the work request from storage it controls until requested by the server. The actual transfer of the work request occurs without interaction of the requestor. The use of notes which represent the work requests permits complex queueing of notes and hence handling of the requests in the order desired by the server.
A method of correlating a group of related processes residing on separate computers of a computer network so that they can be treated as a single entity. A single, large program is split up into separate processes and simultaneously run on several different computers. These related, but separate, processes are assigned a unique identifier. When a new process is created, it is assigned the same identifier as that of the process from which it was created, even though the child process might reside on a different computer. If a process determines that it should not belong to its current group, that process can create its own group by requesting that it be assigned a new identifier. Based on the identifiers, it is possible to implement programs that treat related processes as a single entity.
A computer architecture wherein data inputs causes the dynamic creation of appropriate activities employing stored functions as necessary to accomplish the desired end result for the data. The architecture employs a large scale multi-processing environment for parallel computation. A fast forward propagating queue structure and improved interfacing crossbar are employed.
A word processing apparatus comprising a word processor which prepares and edits a document by a first CPU in response to a signal received from an input unit; and a spelling collator capable of collating the spelling of each word from an input unit with a stored correct spelling of such word, by a second CPU independently of the first CPU.
A multi-processor, multi-tasking virtual machine comprises processes, messages, and contexts. Processes communicate only through messages. Processes may be grouped into contexts of related processes. Communication may be made between processes in different or related contexts or at the same context level. According to one message transmission mode, a message may be sent to each process with a given name within one context, thus ensuring that all processes with the same name at the same context level can be communicated with individually without knowing how many there are or where they are located.
