A Transputer-based undergraduate parallel processing laboratory is being established with IBM-PC-compatible MS-DOS machines equipped with INMOS transputer boards and the Transputer Development System (TDS) environment using the parallel programming language OCCAM2. The purpose of this laboratory is to support instruction in parallel programming and architectures, using the Occam/TDS environment, for undergraduate computer science and mathematics majors. Target courses are Algorithms, Computer Organization, Computer Graphics and Numerical Analysis, ranging from sophomore to senior level. Selected projects provide the students with hands-on experience for reinforcing the conceptual understanding of parallel design issues, including parallel architectures, systematic mapping of systolic arrays on transputer networks, process farming, pipelining, buffering, message-passing, inter-connection topologies and speed-up analysis of common algorithms. After an introduction, the students are expected to program variations of these developed projects.
