processing. The ultimate message from this work should be seen in a larger context. Several languages---such as Ada and Modula-2---are being touted as the standards for the 1990s. These languages severely restrict parallel programming style; this may make saving dusty decks by preprocessing an impossibility. KEY WORDS Parallel programming C CSP Compiler design Distributed systems 0038--0644/92/050371--20$10.00 Received 13 December 1989 1992 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Revised 16 December 1991 372 D. E. STEVENSON ET AL. INTRODUCTION In September 1986, Clemson University purchased a Floating Point Systems (FPS) T-series computer. The T is a hypercube of vector processors: that is, each node is a vector processor. When the T arrived, it had only the occam I language available. In order to make the T usable for numerical work, at least a Fortran compiler was required; certainly for system work, a C compiler was called for. While FPS and Cornell University had already started down th