Transputer documentation required

From: Doug Yowza <yowza_at_yowza.com>
Date: Fri Jul 17 04:53:38 1998

On Fri, 17 Jul 1998, Julian Richardson wrote:

> So can any of you recommend a good book on how transputers work in a
> broad sense? I occasionally have the urge to take all the old PC system
> boards lying around and construct some form of transputer system - ok,
> so it's impractical, would be a lot of work, and wouldn't be of any
> benefit at all, but it would be an interesting exercise :)

A transputer is a specific type of processor from inmos (IIRC), so you
wouldn't be able to easily make one from bits of other computers (although
Tony could probably find a way :-).

However, you could certainly build a parallel processing supercomputer
from a bunch of old PCs. In fact, that was the original idea behind Cal
Tech's Cosmic Cube which eventually led to Intel's hypercubes (such as the
iPSC/1).

I wouldn't be surpised if somebody still has the Cosmic Cube code around,
which would allow you to network some 8088-based machines to create a
hypercube. I have an old Unix-based hypercube simulator from Intel which
was based on the Cosmic Cube code, but I haven't looked into the copyright
issues.

-- Doug
Received on Fri Jul 17 1998 - 04:53:38 BST

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