17 Aug
2013
17 Aug
'13
2:56 p.m.
On 17/08/13 3:02 PM, Tony Duell wrote:
I still want to build a homebrew SBC based on one or two.
The Transputer
was actually a very simple and elegant design -- and very
Yes. I used a couple for my Ph.D. work and I've yet to see a processor
that is easier to interface or program.
I feel that they were intially mis-marketed. They were pushed as a
processr for doing parallel processing (which in a sense is true) with
the result that peopel ignored them becuase they didn't need to do
parallel processing. In fact ther wrre a very nice _microcontroller_.
They were almost ideal for high-performance embedded systems -- like
fast data acquistion devices (what I used them for) and the like.
Yes. The product line was even helpfully segmented along these lines,
between the T2xx, T4xx, and T8xx, along with a good palette of glue
chips from Inmos for I/O, etc.
> fast for its time. Not sure that the x86 family can claim the same.
In particular the Transputer had markedly better single-chip integer and
FP performance than typical workstation/PC chips of the era (e.g. 68K).
They were only overtaken later by more familiar RISC designs.
--Toby
:-)
-tony