Message Passing Interface

Message Passing Interface (MPI) is a standardized and portable message-passing system designed by a group of researchers from academia and industry to function on a wide variety of parallel computers. The standard defines the syntax and semantics of a core of library routines useful to a wide range of users writing portable message-passing programs in different computer programming languages such as Fortran, C, C++ and Java. There are several well-tested and efficient implementations of MPI, including some that are free or in the public domain. These fostered the development of a parallel software industry, and encouraged development of portable and scalable large-scale parallel applications.

History

The message passing interface effort began in the summer of 1991 when a small group of researchers started discussions at a mountain retreat in Austria. Out of that discussion came a Workshop on Standards for Message Passing in a Distributed Memory Environment held on April 29–30, 1992 in Williamsburg, Virginia. At this workshop the basic features essential to a standard message-passing interface were discussed, and a working group established to continue the standardization process. Jack Dongarra, Tony Hey, and David W. Walker put forward a preliminary draft proposal in November 1992, this was known as MPI1. In November 1992, a meeting of the MPI working group was held in Minneapolis, at which it was decided to place the standardization process on a more formal footing. The MPI working group met every 6 weeks throughout the first 9 months of 1993. The draft MPI standard was presented at the Supercomputing '93 conference in November 1993. After a period of public comments, which resulted in some changes in MPI, version 1.0 of MPI was released in June 1994. These meetings and the email discussion together constituted the MPI Forum, membership of which has been open to all members of the high performance computing community.

Steyr MPi 69

The Steyr MPi 69 is a 9×19mm submachine gun of the late 20th century made by the Austrian firm Steyr.

Characteristics

The MPi 69 is shaped much like other telescoping bolt submachineguns, such as the MAC 10 or Uzi. It has a vertical pistol handgrip into which the magazine is inserted, and a longer horizontal front grip area ; it also has a folding stock.

Featuring a design unusual among modern submachine guns, the MPi 69 is cocked by a dual-purpose lever also used as the front sling attachment point. The forward handgrip and vertical pistol handgrip are all one large plastic molding, forming the front and center bottom part of the weapon. The receiver proper is a square metal tube which partly nestles inside the plastic handgrip.

Production Status

In 1990, the MPi 81 was replaced by the TMP in the product line, though the TMP was also discontinued by Steyr, who sold the design to Brügger & Thomet and improved as the Brügger & Thomet MP9.

Variants

MPi 81