History of LAMPS

The recent version of LAMPS is based upon an older version of LAMPS created at Drexel University in the 1970's. The new version is frequently referred to as "LAMPS 90" as a reference to the large-scale changes that were made during the 1990's.

For those familiar with the old LAMPS, the current version differs from the old LAMPS in three principal ways.

The first is language. The old LAMPS was written in IFMAC, a language that requires a preprocessor to convert the code into FORTRAN 77. The new LAMPS is written in FORTRAN 77 with C-preprocessor extensions and an internal subroutine preprocessor (i.e., presplit). It is expected that with FORTRAN 90, many of these extensions will become obsolete.
The second difference is job control. LAMPS now utilizes the makefile structure present on UNIX machines to aid in compilation, linking and running. In addition, LAMPS takes advantage of the UNIX directory structure in order to organize the LAMPS files. These changes make the package best for UNIX machines and, although it is not restricted in this way, this documentation assumes that the user is on a UNIX machine.
The third is the data volume. The old LAMPS used a data volume that was machine-dependent, with the packing scheme set by each call to the I/O routines. LAMPS now utilizes a data volume that is independent of machine, case and record length. In addition, the output from the dynamic model (i.e., the history) is now in the data volume format.

For more information on the changes which have been made, see the updates file. Last updated: March 21, 2000.

Questions and comments should be directed to Robert Cohen

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