Abstract: A method and an apparatus for reconciling communication and locality by enabling a user/programmer to write programs in an extended procedural language which explicitly manipulate locality. The multiprocessor includes a plurality of processing elements connected to each other each processing element having a unique address and including a central processing unit for executing local CPU code and reading and writing local data and a locality manager for controlling data movement between processing elements which are cooperating on a single task by executing local locality manager code which indicates when shared data can be released and when non-local data is requested.

Abstract: A method and system for recording and playing back from a bulk digital data storage medium having unequal access time, such as a rotating magnetic disk, data of a plurality of separate files, such as multi-channel sound information. Blocks of the digital data streams are stored in physically non-sequential scattered positions on a disk. The starting sectors of each recording track of the disk are not made the same but rather at least two different starting sectors are provided on alternating tracks in order to reduce the amount of access time between blocks of data. The blocks of data are read from the disk into a buffer memory in accordance with a disk read head scheduling technique that causes the next block of data with the shortest access time to be transferred unless there is an urgency to maintain balance in the various channels, in which case a block of data for the channel having the least buffered data is transferred next.