PIX, the latest NeWS
- 7 January 2003
- conference paper
- Published by Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Abstract
The NeWS window server from Sun Microsystems is the addition of quasiparallelism to PostScript. NeWS uses this parallelism to deal with the inherent concurrency of human/computer interactions. NeWS provides multiple, lightweight processes to deal with this parallelism; as a result, user interfaces are demonstrably easier to implement using NeWS than using other window servers. The pseudoconcurrency of NeWS naturally suggests that it might be an excellent candidate for execution on a true parallel processor. The goal of the PIX (parallel interactive executive) project was to produce a version of NeWS that runs on parallel processors, and to fix some problems with NeWS. In addition, execution NeWS on a parallel processor does more than just provide execution speed advantages, it begins to redefine the role of server-based user interfaces in modern computer systems. PIX extensions of NeWS include: preemptive process scheduling; Linda operators are used for safe interprocess communication; and a decentralized event mechanism. PIX also allows for separately compiled primitives.Keywords
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