Overview of concert multilisp: a multiprocessor symbolic computing system

Abstract

Multilisp is a parallel programming language derived from the Scheme dialect of Lisp by addition of the future construct. Multilisp has been implemented on Concert, a shared-memory mui~iprocessor that uses a novel RingBus interconnection. Concert currently has 28 MC68000 processors, with a design goal of 32 processors. Several application programs have been developed and measured using Concert Multilisp. Experience with these programs has contributed to tuning the Multilisp language design and will ultimately contribute to the design of a parallel architecture streamlined for high performance on Multilisp programs.