Abstract This paper presents a survey of some of the tools, techniques, and constructs for the development of portable, multitasked Fortran programs. The study mainly focuses on existing software tools that implement different approaches to achieving portability of multitasked Fortran programs for local and shared memory multiprocessor computers. However, some proposed approaches are also included. It appears that while each approach enjoys some advantages and suffers some disadvantages, at present, the development and use of portable multitasking tools is in its infancy, and thus no one system is clearly superior. Indeed, we expect that, for the foreseeable future, these and perhaps other techniques will all be actively pursued.

Two pracUcal parallel algorithms for solving systems of dense linear equations on an MIMD computer are presented.They are based on Gaussian elunmation and Givens transformations The algonthms are numerically stable and have been tested on the Denelcor HEP machine.