Subject: Availability of UNIFY 0.9.1

From: Tony Skjellum <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 94 17:41:21 CDT

Availability of UNIFY Version 0.9.1

The UNIFY system, which patches PVM 3.2, 3.2.6, or 3.3, provides
a subset of MPI within the PVM environment, without sacrificing
the PVM calls already available.  This system currently works
with the network versions of PVM, and has been tested with Sun
and SGI platforms.  It is easily installed.

The motivations for UNIFY are as follows:

*	Permit an easy learning curve for MPI to existing PVM users
*	Provide a dual-API mechanism for mixed PVM and MPI applications
*	Aid with the migration of codes from PVM syntax to MPI syntax
*	Provide a testbed for further MPI development

UNIFY is based on completely independent MPI code.  Version 0.9.1
provides a subset.  Subsequent version will provide the entire
MPI specification, and make use of the Argonne/Mississippi State
implementation.

Currently, UNIFY has the following limits:

*	SPMD model only
*	Static process creation
*	C Interface only

Who will use UNIFY?

*	Anyone who wants to learn MPI without reading the entire standards document
*	Anyone who wants to migrate applications to MPI
*	Anyone who wants to learn parallel programming, and is interested in comparing
	strategies for message-passing syntax and semantics 

We will aggressively update Unify as users send their requests,
bug reports, and suggestions.  

The following mailing addresses may be used:

	[email-masked] (suggestions, questions)
	[email-masked] (problem reports)

The software is available free, for all uses, from the following ftp site:

site:		ftp.erc.msstate.edu
directory:	unify/
Read the file "README" to get started.

UNIFY comes with a tutorial manual that explains the MPI calls that it supports,
explains installation, and provides a number of figures to help with intuition about
message-passing.

Sincerely,
Paula Vaughan
Anthony Skjellum
Donna Reese
NSF Engineering Research Center for Computational Field Simulation
Mississippi State University