Surviving UK Transputer systems...

From: Ram Meenakshisundaram <RMeenaks_at_OLF.COM>
Date: Thu Nov 4 08:37:07 2004

The transputer CPU was made by INMOS (which was later bought out by
SGS-Thompson which became ST-Microelectronics). However, there were several
manufacturers of transputer equipment. Some of the popular ones are INMOS,
Transtech, Niche, Parsytec, Sundance, and Parsys. See the specs page for a
list of vendors. This is not complete at all and only contains vendors I
have info on. What type of INMOS stuff do you have???

Thanks,

Ram

-----Original Message-----
From: Joe R. [mailto:rigdonj_at_cfl.rr.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 04, 2004 9:11 AM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: RE: Surviving UK Transputer systems...


At 08:17 AM 11/4/04 -0500, Ram wrote:
>A transputer is just like any other processor with memory, etc, etc.
>Except that it has two unique attributes:
>
>1) Has communication links so that you can hook it up to other
>transputer nodes (or other peripherals). This allowed you to create a
>multiprocessor system with several nodes (seen transputer networks of
>1024 nodes at one time). It was like LEGO for parallel processing.
>The technology that was designed for the transputer is now slowing
>creaping into modern processors. Not bad for a mid 80's processor....
>
>2) Has micro-coded scheduler which allows you to create multi-processes
>inside a single CPU. It supported two priorities in high and low. You
>could do parallel processing in assembly with this baby! This is all
>embedded inside the CPU core. Designed around the mid 80's and had an
>EOL
>(End-of-life) around the late 90's. Quite a remarkable CPU and it was
quite
>fast too compared to the 386 of that era. See my website at
>http://www.classiccmp.org/transputer for more info/links...


   I looked at the data sheets on your website so that I would know that the
parts and part numbers looked like. Does anyone other that INMOS and
Thompson make these? I find lots of parallel computing equipment so there
should be some transputer stuff in there too. I have found a lot of high
speed parallel stuff with INMOS parts but I think it's older (early 80s)
than the transputers. But the transputer stuff should show up one day.

    Joe


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Received on Thu Nov 04 2004 - 08:37:07 GMT

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