Multithread API Usability Study

[Terry Peterson]

    We are seeking software developers interested in participating in a
    functional and usability study of a new software package, PCthreads(tm).

    PCthreads is an instrumented, multithread facility for MS-DOS(tm)
    systems based on the POSIX 1003.4a API, "Threads Extension for Portable
    Operating Systems".  In the UNIX world this API is often referred to as
    the "pthreads" API.  The PCthreads package is designed for programmers
    whose software is required to be portable between both UNIX and MS-DOS
    environments.  Hence, PCthreads strict adherence to the POSIX standard.

    Our goal is to produce a highly functional, yet easy to use, developer's
    kit for designers of UNIX and MS-DOS multithreaded software.  While the
    design of threads packages, like PCthreads, is well understood, how to
    program with threads is not.  More to the point, tools that help the
    grundoon programmer develop sophisticated parallel and/or interrupt driven
    asynchronous applications are scarce.  The strategy employed in this study
    is to provide a reasonably complete, POSIX-based threads package to its
    participants, in return for which they will share with us (and
    subsequently this newgroup) their functional and usability requirements.
    
    There is no cost for participation but, because of our size and ability to
    support this study, we must limit the number of participants.  Our
    preliminary selection criteria is based on the application area and the
    experience of the participants (assuming, of course, there is enough
    interest... [:-) ).
    
    We're especially interested in working with developers whose software
    could benefit from an asynchronous, or interrupt driven, execution
    environment.  For example:
         
         o Conformant POSIX 1003.4 API (Realtime) services for MSDOS users
         o [Multithreaded] device drivers (especially disk and network).
         o Asynchronous communications and/or keyboard I/O services.
         o Database servers.
         o Distributed Computing services (e.g., RPC-based client-server 
            applications)         

    If you are interested in participating please reply privately to this note
    letting us know what your area of application interest is.  If not
    interested in participating, or can not participate, but have a technical
    question about the package feel free to send me mail.

    We will post the results of the study to this newgroup (e.g., a set of of
    functional and usability requirements) upon its completion.  In return for
    the use of this public newsgroup, and your patience, a non-crippled,
    complete implementation of the PCthreads package will be made available
    via FreeWare (i.e., send us a disk and a SASE and we'll send you the
    software) when the study is complete.

    Regards,
    
    Gerry McGuire,
    
    PCthreads(tm) is a trademark of TriTechnologies Corporation, Redmond, Wa
    MS-DOS(tm) is a trademark of Microsoft, Redmond, Wa
    UNIX(tm) is a trademark of AT&T, Somewhere in New Jersey.