I'v spend rather too much time building transputer-based devices, so I might be able to help... You _need_ the INMOS databooks. Period. Given those and the necessary chips, you can get started. In fact it took me < 1 hour from opening the book to having a transputer run a (pre-written) test program. OK, I was lucky in that I had access to a host with a transputer link I could use to boot my device, but even so... If you ignore the T9000 (did they ever really exist), just about anything works with anything... OK, what you need is : A transputer chip. Not necessarily on a TRAM (TRAnsputer Module). You can boot a 'bare' chip (it has a tiny amount of RAM inside), or add external RAM to a transputer chip. The memory interface is really nice, you can hook up DRAM will little more than an address multiplexer and latches. A 5MHz clock source. I found a 10MHz oscillator can a '74 was the easiest way. A host adaptor. This is the bit you're really missing. INMOS made a couple of ICs to connect an 8-bit microprocessor but to a transputer link -- these being the C011 and C012. There was at least one ISA trasnputer board (I am thinking of the B004) that consisted of a C011 (I think), address deocder/ISA interface, a T414 (again, could be other trasnputers), and a load of DRAM. This gave you one trasnputer linked to the PC (effectively) and the other links came out on a pin header on the conenctor bracked so you could hang other things off it. There was also a TRAM motherboard, the number of which I forget, that fitted an ISA slot. Again, it had the host link interface, and IIRC a C004 libk switch IC (lets you configure the links between transputers) on it. And sockets for 8 or 10 TRAMs. In the very early days of trasnputers, the link interface ICs didn't exist. INMOS made some boards that had _RS232 ports_ on them for the host interface. The board contained a transputer, RAM, ROM and a serial chip -- the ROM was executed rather than the bootstrap code in the transputer (which would cause said transptuer to boot over a link). The ROM coatained code to boot it from a serial port. I do not recoemnd goign this route unless you've found some of those boards, finding a host link interface is a lot easier

-tony

I would assume they're not VMA. The VME form-factor is actually just a double Eurocard, and is a very standard PCB in Europe for all sorts of purposes -- I've got Philips P800 stuff on such boards, for example, my homebrew transputer ssytem ended up on the same size PCBs, and so on. Quite possible. My _guess_ is that this won't have the host interface on it, rather that the interconnection between the boards will be transputer links. What chips are on the boards -- particularly Inmos ones? Any C011 or C012 devices?

-tony