TTP07-06 The Multithreaded version of FORM

We present TFORM, the version of the symbolic manipulation system FORM that can make simultaneous use of several processors in a shared memory architecture. The implementation uses Posix threads, also called pthreads, and is therefore easily portable between various operating systems. Most existing FORM programs will be able to take advantage of the increased processing power, without the need for modifications. In some cases some minor additions may be needed. For a computer with two processors a typical improvement factor in the running time is 1.7 when compared to the traditional version of FORM. In the case of computers with 4 processors a typical improvement factor in the execution time is slightly above 3.