Introduction to occam 2 on the Transputer

Traditionally, computer programming has been sequential in nature. There has been the need to write a program to follow an exact sequence of steps to attain the required result. As parallel computers become more common, and the operation of existing computers itself becomes more parallel, there is a need to have the ability to write parallel programs. This guide provides an introduction to one such parallel language, OCCAM 2, and aims to provide support for practical programming in concurrency. The text contains an overview of the operation of a transputer and its characteristic novel architecture, which illustrates many of the important features that the language uses to achieve parallelism. Several practical examples are developed throughout the text to illustrate a few of the applications suitable for parallel programming techniques. No previous experience of writing parallel programs is required by readers of this text, however a general knowledge of programming techniques is beneficial.