A PVM-BASED DISTRIBUTED PARALLEL SYMBOLIC SYSTEM

The purpose of this work is to provide a parallel programming environm ent for symbolic applications suited to run on Distributed Memory Para llel Systems (DMPS). This paper describes the implementation of such a n environment that is based on Sabot's Paralation model (in particular its LISP implementation, Paralation LISP). In our opinion, the clear distinction between the communication and computation aspects in the P aralation model allows a clearer and easier exploitation of the opport unities of parallelism in symbolic applications. Furthermore, the simp le semantics of its parallel constructs seem well suited to run on a c ommunity of loosely coupled LISP interpreters. We chose to implement t he Paralation model constructs on the top of the Parallel Virtual Mach ine (PVM) package because this tool allows one to have a cheap virtual distributed memory parallel machine simply by using some LAN intercon nected powerful workstations. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Limited.