Abstract: A parallel computer system is disclosed comprising a plurality of high level processors joined together using a cross-point or cross-bar switch. The system includes an adapter between each processor and the switch. Protocol processing to drive the switch, transfer pages and schedule transmissions between the processors is performed by the adapter. The protocol use the notion of typed or tagged buffer management that allows a client to bind the semantics of a message being sent or received. These semantics specify behaviors in the protocol when message packets depart or when they arrive.

Abstract: Apparatus and an accompanying method for implementing a communications protocol for use in generally a distributed, and particularly a highly parallel, multi-processing system (5), for communicating application data of arbitrarily varying strides between separate processors and generally without the need for intermediate data storage. Specifically, application data is transferred through a succession of packets (770) between originating and destination application programs (252), with each packet containing a partial data message. Each partial data message contains a portion of the data that is stored in a stride one portion of an originating application data memory (700). Upon reception, each data portion is written into a stride one portion of a destination application data memory (760). An application interface (254), executing independently at both the originating and destination processing elements (10.sub.1, 10.sub.