TORQUEWARE FOR THE Amiga


TITLE

       TorqueWare(TM) for the Amiga(R)

VERSION

       1.0

COMPANY

       AugmenTek
       3606 S. 180th St. C-22
       SeaTac, WA 98188-4339
       USA

       Contact: Stephen Rondeau, President
       Phone: 206-246-6077
       email: sbr@halcyon.com

AUTHOR

       Licensed from Torque Systems, Inc.
       TorqueWare is a trademark of Torque Systems, Inc.
       Amiga is a registered trademark of Commodore-Amiga, Inc.
       AmigaDOS and KickStart are trademarks of Commodore-Amiga, Inc.
       Linda is a registered trademark of Scientific Computing Associates.

       Ported to the Amiga, supported and sold by AugmenTek.

       This product includes software developed by the University of
       California, Berkeley and its contributors.

DESCRIPTION

       TorqueWare for the Amiga is a programming tool that allows your
       program to:

           *  run faster by using multiple processors,

           *  share data among multiple processors/processes,

           *  access data by partial content, and

           *  be source-code portable to other TorqueWare-supported
              computers.

       TorqueWare can be thought of as  a compiler extension that allows
       you to distribute computation and data within one or among more than
       one processors, as in a network of computers or (in the future)
       multiprocessor boards.  By itself it does not, say, accelerate
       rendering or create software agents for you, but it provides the
       means by which rendering can be accelerated (tests show an almost
       linear speedup with raytracing code) and software agents can be
       developed and coordinated.  Like a compiler, there is no good
       demonstration of its capabilities, since its utility depends on the
       creativity of the programmer. There are, however, two good books
       that provide some insight on how to program in parallel and possible
       uses of this programming model ('Mirror Worlds' by Gelernter).

       This programming tool is a simple but powerful way to build
       distributed programs, and is based on the Linda(R) programming
       model.  It provides the means to coordinate multiple processes and
       access a global data space from one or more processors.  A run-time
       system and six C function calls allow adding data to and
       removing/reading  data from that global data space, and executing
       functions either remotely or locally. To change from running
       locally, where one develops and tests on one processor with
       multitasked processes, to running in a distributed fashion is simple
       and involves no recompilation or linking (unless you are running on
       a non-Amiga system).

       TorqueWare for the Amiga interoperates with other TorqueWare
       products available from Torque Systems, Inc.  Their products run on
       Apple Macintosh computers, Silicon Graphics workstations, and other
       computers, and are accessible using just the Base Development System
       and Ethernet hardware.

       The Base Development System consists of the C preprocessor,
       standalone  local link libraries, local and network support tools,
       example programs,  a graphical user interface (to setup and start
       execution), and online documentation (including a tutorial).   The
       local tools allow development of parallelized applications using
       multitasking on one computer; therefore,  nearly all applications
       will run slower than their equivalent sequential  versions.

       Creating a networked application for an all-Amiga (or mixed) network
       involves purchasing the networking add-on product for each
       additional CPU and  setting some switches -- no coding change is
       generally required. The networked application will run faster than
       the local if there is a good deal more computation than
       communication.  Some applications are simply more feasible to model
       and maintain in a distributed fashion rather than in a sequential
       one; speed may not be the only reason to distribute your application
       across a network.

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

       *  AmigaDOS/Kickstart(TM) 2.04 or higher
       *  Approximately 275KB RAM plus 85KB per local process, additional
       *  SAS/C(R) compiler
       *  General TCP/IP Networking add-on:

              -  Networking hardware: Ethernet, Arcnet, serial port;
                 parallel port (with Shareware plip.device)

              -  About 150KB RAM plus 85KB per remote process

PRICE

       All prices are in U.S. currency.

       Base Development System : $100.
       General TCP/IP Network add-on, per Amiga CPU: $200.

       Applicable tax and shipping/handling are not included in the list
       prices.

DISTRIBUTABILITY

       Only items marked as being freely-redistributable are.  All others
       are NOT distributable.

       Any object code or executable code that is linked with TorqueWare
       link libraries must be licensed by AugmenTek for distribution. There
       are no restrictions on distributing source code that contains
       TorqueWare calls, or resulting object code that is not linked with
       TorqueWare link libraries.

       This means that executable public domain, freeware/giftware,
       shareware,  and demos (and possibly other forms of public software)
       that include executable TorqueWare calls to link libraries,
       managers, network listeners and servicers are not permitted.