Browsing by Author "Levinson, Danny"

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    JADE: a distributed software prototyping environment
    (1983-04-01) Witten, Ian H.; Birtwistle, Graham M.; Cleary, John; Hill, David R.; Levinson, Danny; Lomow, Greg; Neal, Radford; Peterson, Murray; Unger, Brian W; Wyvill, Brian
    The Jade research project is aimed at building an environment which comfortably supports the design, construction, and testing of distributed computer systems. This note is an informal project description which delimits the scope of the work and identifies the research problems which are tackled. Some design issues are discussed, and progress to date is described.
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    PROPOSAL FOR AN ENVIRONMENT FOR DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT
    (1985-04-01) Levinson, Danny
    The development of future generation computing systems involves the integration of a range of technologies that have previously been treated as quite separate. The Japanese ICOT group state they are using the "latest research results in VLSI technology, as well as technology of distributed processing, software engineering, knowledge engineering, artificial intelligence, and pattern information processing." This need for system integration is not just a theme of fifth generation computing. It reflects a growing industrial emphasis on the development of systems targeted at specific markets, yet taking full advantage of advances in the diverse technologies that make up the infrastructure of modern computing systems. The Jade project in this Department has been an experiment in bringing together specialists in the key areas of computing technology to focus together on the development of a single application development support environment for integrated systems. The three-year experiment has been remarkably successful not only in the system developed but also in the effective interaction between those involved. It has demonstrated that researchers with many different backgrounds and objectives can work together in the way necessary to integrate their diverse skills. This new proposal builds on, and extends, the Jade system as developed in the light of our experience to date. It aims to provide a practical application development support environment for the design and implementation of large distributed, concurrent or embedded systems. It aims to make this available to industry as a set of tools that are readily transported across a range of widely available systems. It aims to be applicable to system developments ranging from VLSI design to integrated manufacturing systems. It aims to incorporate our existing experience and skills in VLSI, machine architecture, software engineering, simulation, graphics and human factors, together with new developments in knowledge-based systems. The project is ambitious, and unusual in its expectation that groups with such diverse interest will work closely together. However, from our previous experience we are confident that the aims are achievable and the resulting systems and knowledge will be strategic importance for Canada.
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    VISUALISING A SIMULATION USING ANIMATED PICTURES
    (1983-11-01) Birtwistle, Graham; Wyvill, Brian; Levinson, Danny; Neal, Radford
    We examine an application of Jaggies, a 2D graphics system designed as part of the Jade software prototyping environment. The Jade research project is aimed at building an environment which comfortably supports the design, construction, and testing of distributed computer systems. Jaggies is based on a hierarchical data structure and avoids storage of large picture files. In this application, Jaggies provides versatile support for the graphical display of the state of the Andes simulation interpreter. Jaggies pictures are represented as linked lists of objects. An object describes an instance of a picture or a primitive. The Jaggies data structure is accessed via a set of procedures which may be called from an application program. Some of the more unusual features of Jaggies are: the system maintains an internal model of the display which may be altered incrementally; the system may be distributed across several processors; and recursively structured pictures may be defined. In Andes a simulation running on a host machine communicates with one or more Jaggies programs running on a Jade graphics workstation using Jade Inter Process Communication (JIPC). The user first goes through a design phase in which graphical icons are defined to represent specific entities in the simulation. These icons are represented in a compact form as a Jaggies data structure which resides on the workstation. Simple real-time animation functions may also be specified. As the simulation progresses the icons appear when entities are created and move in accordance with commands from the simulation program. The user may interact with the graphics; for example, different views may be created and areas of interest may be re-scaled to show details. Andes is being implemented on a VAX/780 host machine and a Corvus Concept workstation.
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    VISUALISING A SIMULATION USING ANIMATED PICTURES
    (1983-11-01) Birtwistle, Graham; Wyvill, Brian; Levinson, Danny; Neal, Radford
    We examine an application of Jaggies, a 2D graphics system designed as part of the Jade software prototyping environment. The Jade research project is aimed at building an environment which comfortably supports the design, construction, and testing of distributed computer systems. Jaggies is based on a hierarchical data structure and avoids storage of large picture files. In this application, Jaggies provides versatile support for the graphical display of the state of the Andes simulation interpreter. Jaggies pictures are represented as linked lists of objects. An object describes an instance of a picture or a primitive. The Jaggies data structure is accessed via a set of procedures which may be called from an application program. Some of the more unusual features of Jaggies are: the system maintains an internal model of the display which may be altered incrementally; the system may be distributed across several processors; and recursively structured pictures may be defined. In Andes a simulation running on a host machine communicates with one or more Jaggies programs running on a Jade graphics workstation using Jade Inter Process Communication (JIPC). The user first goes through a design phase in which graphical icons are defined to represent specific entities in the simulation. These icons are represented in a compact form as a Jaggies data structure which resides on the workstation. Simple real-time animation functions may also be specified. As the simulation progresses the icons appear when entities are created and move in accordance with commands from the simulation program. The user may interact with the graphics; for example, different views may be created and areas of interest may be re-scaled to show details. Andes is being implemented on a VAX/780 host machine and a Corvus Concept workstation.