26-Apr-2024 02:24 GMT.
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
[News] POSIX threads ported to 68k AmigaANN.lu
Posted on 28-Jan-2004 22:27 GMT by whoosh28 comments
View flat
View list
straight clean port of Ralf S Engelschall's pth-1.4.0 a non pre-emptive implementation of POSIX threads to 68k Amiga. This is 2 gcc linker libraries to enable porting + writing of threaded programs to 68k Amiga. http://www.whoosh777.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/pthreads.html To see a threaded program run on 68k Amiga download and run "the 5 philosophers":

http://www.whoosh777.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/test_philo (requires just ixemul.library),

:this example program uses libpth.a,

The port itself is 2 gcc linker libraries: libpthread.a and libpth.a,

Last December I ported rpm4.0 with databases disconnected as database support required libpthread.a . So now I should be able to generate a full port of rpm4.0 (or higher) to 68k,

(its not at the top of my to-do list)

This port took only one day to do, an attempt at a totally different pre-emptive implementation of libpthread.a took well over a week before I gave up.

Anyway the consequence of this port of pth-1.4.0 is that it will enable porting of threaded programs. Probably noixemul progs will also be ok.

Even though it is only 1 days work I thought it was worth an announce as people always say the classic Amiga cant thread, well it can thread!

The most difficult thing was locating pth-1.4.0 as I didnt know it existed till I found it, I was only searching for libpthread.a

No idea if the example program will run on PPC or Amithlon, email me if you try it on such.

The advantage of being non-pre-emptive is that it is much more portable and clean. And if it implements POSIX threading (nightmare specification) it implements POSIX threading! (non-pre-emption notwithstanding) The source + necessary fixes to quite bugged configure are on http://www.whoosh777.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/pthreads.html

List of all comments to this article
Sorted by date, most recent at bottom
Comment 1Golem29-Jan-2004 00:47 GMT
Comment 2Anonymous29-Jan-2004 08:28 GMT
Comment 3Anonymous29-Jan-2004 08:35 GMT
Comment 4Kjetil29-Jan-2004 10:44 GMT
Comment 5Thematic29-Jan-2004 11:50 GMT
Comment 6whoosh29-Jan-2004 16:53 GMT
Comment 7whoosh29-Jan-2004 18:39 GMT
Comment 8Fabio AlemagnaRegistered user29-Jan-2004 19:51 GMT
Comment 9MarkTime29-Jan-2004 21:49 GMT
Comment 10whoosh30-Jan-2004 01:23 GMT
Comment 11Sigbjørn Skjæret30-Jan-2004 01:49 GMT
POSIX threads ported to 68k Amiga : Comment 12 of 28ANN.lu
Posted by Oppressor on 30-Jan-2004 01:56 GMT
I was using the PTH package once, and it was amazing how well it could replace code that was previously using preemptive threads. In the server software domain, there is an ongoing discussion about explicit multithreaded vs. explicit singlethreaded designs. Interesting in this context is that PTH can be both, as it makes it transparent to the application. The application as a whole remains single-threaded, but parts of the code are "logically" threaded. This is achieved by implicit context changes at all kinds of synchronization points.

If your application is strictly event-driven and operates on short jobs per thread, then this approach is worth a look, because it can outperform preemptive threads, especially on operating systems with expensive kernel context switches (the AmigaOS does NOT belong to this category, though). You can also switch between cooperative and preemptive threads by simply linking against a different pthreads implementation. If you are interested, test your application regularly with both PTH and regular pthreads implementations. If this works, then your overall design is probably good. :)

One possible benefit of PTH on the Amiga may be that you can possibly zap/kill threads at cooperation points (I didn't look into your port, though). This is otherwise not cleanly possible on the Amiga.
Jump...
TopPrevious commentNext commentbottom
List of all comments to this article (continued)
Comment 13Golem30-Jan-2004 04:45 GMT
Comment 14Anonymous30-Jan-2004 09:10 GMT
Comment 15Anonymous30-Jan-2004 12:47 GMT
Comment 16whoosh30-Jan-2004 21:23 GMT
Comment 17Sigbjørn Skjæret31-Jan-2004 00:05 GMT
Comment 18Oppressor31-Jan-2004 03:56 GMT
Comment 19Kolbjørn Barmen31-Jan-2004 16:49 GMT
Comment 20whoosh01-Feb-2004 20:33 GMT
Comment 21Sigbjørn Skjæret01-Feb-2004 23:30 GMT
Comment 22whoosh02-Feb-2004 20:18 GMT
Comment 23Sigbjørn Skjæret02-Feb-2004 20:39 GMT
Comment 24whoosh02-Feb-2004 20:59 GMT
Comment 25whoosh02-Feb-2004 21:32 GMT
Comment 26whoosh04-Feb-2004 18:08 GMT
Comment 27whoosh04-Feb-2004 20:50 GMT
Comment 28whoosh05-Feb-2004 17:36 GMT
Back to Top