Name                                     Last modified      Size  Description
 Parent Directory                                              -   
 README                                   2019-01-29 15:46  4.8K  

This software is provided without support and without any obligation on the
part of Silicon Graphics, Inc. to assist in its use, correction, modification 
or enhancement.  There is no guarantee that this software will be included 
in future software releases, and it probably will not be included.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITH NO WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND INCLUDING THE
WARRANTIES OF DESIGN, MERCHANTIBILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE, OR ARISING FROM A COURSE OF DEALING, USAGE OR TRADE PRACTICE.

If you have any problems using this account, or have suggestions concerning
its use, please send electronic mail to "[email protected]".


This directory contains several versions of SGI's optimized BLAS library.

The Basic Linear Algebra Subprograms, usually called BLAS, are routines
for performing low-level vector and matrix operations. There are three
level of BLAS. BLAS level 1 uses typically O(N) floating point operations
per call and involves a Vector-Vector kind of computation. BLAS level 2
performs Matrix-Vector computations with O(N**2) floating point operations.
BLAS 3 involves Matrix-Matrix operations and requires O(N**3) floating
point operations.

BLAS2 and BLAS3 modules have been optimized and parallelized to take advantage 
of SGI's RISC parallel architecture. The best performances are achieved for 
BLAS3 routines (e.g. DGEMM), where "outer-loop" unrolling + "blocking" 
techniques were applied to take advantage of the memory cache. The performance
of BLAS2 routines (e.g. DGEMV) is sensitive to the size of the problem, for 
large sizes the high rate of cache miss slows down the algorithms.


The directory 4.x contains SGI's optimized serial (not parallel) BLAS library
for the R3000 (_mips1) and R4* (_mips2) based machines running IRIX 4.*. 
These libraries are compiled to run on a single processor.

The directory 5.x contains single-processor and multiple-processor versions 
of the BLAS libraries for the R3000 (_mips1) and R4* (_mips2) based machines 
running IRIX 5.*.

*** BUG FIXES
The 5.x versions have several bug fixes:
1. fix for IZAMAX.
2. fix for [CZ]DOTC and [CZ]DOTU when called from C.
3. fix for dgemm problem in the A * B[transpose] case in mips2 version. 
These fixes will be incorporated into the IRIX release 6.2.
***


4.x/libblas_mips1_serial.a.   is a serial version of /usr/lib/libblas on
			      R3000 based machines running IRIX 4.*. This 
			      versions is NOT parallel and does not have 
			      to be linked with the -mp flag.

4.x/libblas_mips2_serial.a.   replaces /usr/lib/libblas.a on Crimson and
                              Indigo 2 running IRIX 4.*.

5.x/libblas.a                 replaces /usr/lib/libblas.a on systems running
			      IRIX 5.*.

5.x/libblas.so                replaces /usr/lib/libblas.so on systems running
			      IRIX 5.*.

5.x/libblas_mp.a              replaces /usr/lib/libblas_mp.a on systems
		              running IRIX 5.*.

5.x/libblas_mips2.a           replaces /usr/lib/mips2/libblas.a on systems 
			      running IRIX 5.*.

5.x/libblas_mips2.so          replaces /usr/lib/mips2/libblas.so on systems 
			      running IRIX 5.*.

5.x/libblas_mp_mips2.a        replaces /usr/lib/mips2/libblas_mp.a on systems
		              running IRIX 5.*.

If you are running IRIX 5.3, you will have to remove or replace 
- /usr/lib/libblas.so
- /usr/lib/mips2/libblas.so

/usr/lib/libblas.so           replace by           5.x/libblas.so
/usr/lib/mips2/libblas.so     replace by           5.x/libblas_mips2.so

There are also .so versions of

/usr/lib/libblas_mp.so                             5.x/libblas_mp.so.Z
/usr/lib/mips2/libblas_mp.so                       5.x/libblas_mp_mips2.so


To load on your machine :

ftp> binary
ftp> get README
                                          ***  IRIX 4.* versions   ***
ftp> get 4.x/libblas_mips1_serial.a.Z     *** for an R3000 machine ***
ftp> get 4.x/libblas_mips2_serial.a.Z     *** for an R4*   machine ***

                                          ***  IRIX 5.* versions   ***
ftp> get 5.x/libblas.a.Z                  *** for an R3000 machine ***
ftp> get 5.x/libblas_mp.a.Z               *** for an R3000 machine ***
ftp> get 5.x/libblas_mips2.a.Z            *** for an R4*   machine ***
ftp> get 5.x/libblas_mp_mips2.a.Z         *** for an R4*   machine ***

ftp> get 5.x/libblas.so.Z                 *** for an R3000 machine ***
ftp> get 5.x/libblas_mp.so.Z              *** for an R3000 machine ***
ftp> get 5.x/libblas_mips2.so.Z           *** for an R4*   machine ***
ftp> get 5.x/libblas_mp_mips2.so.Z        *** for an R4*   machine ***

ftp> quit

% uncompress libblas*.a.Z


To link with "libblas", it is advised to use "f77 " to load all the 
Fortran Libraries required, e.g.,

% f77 -o foobar.out foo.o bar.o -lblas


Any problems, comments or suggestions contact:

Mimi Celis
Silicon Graphics
Phone : (415)390-5135
E-Mail: [email protected]