Task Control Architecture
-------------------------

The task control architecture provides a general purpose framework for
building distributed robot control software.  It provides facilities for
communication and control between multiple processes running on multiple
processors.

For a detailed description of TCA, see the programmers guide in the doc
directory.

For instructions on compiling TCA, see the INSTALL file in the src
directory.

The current version of TCA has been run on the following machines types:

sparc running SunOs 4.1.3
sparc running Mach 2.6
sparc running vx works
Dec 3100 (pmax) running Mach 2.6
i386 running mach 2.6 and 3.0 and linux
Dec Alpha running osf 1.3
SGI Personal Iris 

Soon to be released:
MacIntosh running System 7.

The system should run on any machine that supports sockets and has a c
compiler.  For information in porting TCA to a new architecture, contact
Reid Simmons (reids@cs.cmu.edu).

There are several sets of "makefiles" in these directories.  The
GNUmakefiles are for use with the GNU project make (gmake).  These are
the most comprehensive makefiles.  The "Makefiles" are the most generic.
Other files can are specialized to a specific architecture, but these
often get out of date.  Try the GNUmakefiles first, then the Makefiles
and finally any other random files.

An older version of the instructions for compiling tca is available in
README.old.  This files also contains instructions for running some of
the example test programs.  As of this time, not all the test programs
have been tested with the current version.

Richard
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HISTORY

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