An introduction to the OLYMPUS system

Abstract A standard methodology has been established for the design, construction and operation of Fortran programs to solve initial-value and other problems. The following two papers describe the OLYMPUS library package which is used in implementing this methodology on the ICL 4/70 at Culham, together with an illustrative example of a laser fusion code called MEDUSA 1 which has been developed in this way. Subsequent papers will describe how OLYMPUS can be installed on IBM and CDC machines. This article provides a brief introduction to the OLYMPUS system and explains why it has been adopted.