Hardware support for inter-process communication and processor sharing

Authors:
W. S. Ford;V. C. Hamacher
Affiliations:
Departments of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada;Departments of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Venue:
ISCA '76 Proceedings of the 3rd annual symposium on Computer architecture
Year:
1976

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Abstract

The abstraction of a computer system as a set of asynchronous communicating processes is an important system concept. This paper indicates how the concept could be supported at a low hardware level. A new inter-process communication mechanism called a mailbox is introduced. Examples of its use as a programming tool are given. This is followed by a description of hardware features that use this mechanism as the basis of communication between the components of a complete system. These features include processor-sharing hardware capable of handling process selection and switching with high efficiency. It is also indicated how these features can take the place of conventional input/output structures.