HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: parsec@iowegia.uucp (mike thompson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.transputer
Subject: RE: IMPORTANT questions. please read.
Date: Tue, 01 Sep 92 01:17:09 CDT
Distribution: world
Organization: Iowegia Waffle BBS, Clive IA USA, +1 515 226 2156

jcbhrb@nic.cerf.net (Jacob Hirbawi) writes:

> Now let's say a
> T9000 costs $700 and 4MBytes of DRAM $100 and say $200 for other parts;
> (let's forget about development and manufacturing costs for now).
> You have 25 MFlops (or 200 Mips or anyway you look at it: a lot of
> power) *with built-in parallelism* for about $1000. The real cost is higher,
> but not by much. And you can stamp out as many copies as you need! .
> Now if you are a company and try to sell these things you have to cover
> advertising, payroll, insurance, and all that jazz and the price skyrockets.
> But for your own use you have a reasonably priced processing unit.

... build it, and they will buy ...

Give the computing enthusiasts
1) a board with a T9000 and provision for lots of RAM
2) hardware provisions for parallelism (more boards)
3) a clean, stable OS that isn't in your face every other microsecond
4) a language that can use these resources
5) basic plug-'n-play system <5000 US$
6) fairly readable docs in depth

The users will soon write a multitude of attractive PD applications.  Atari
claimed to be doing just that with T800s not long ago.  Wonder what happpened?
Anyway, I should thing fame and fortune would then be unavoidable.
From: wgd@ukc.ac.uk (Warren Day)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.transputer
Subject: compiler inclusion strategy
Summary: Is the occam compiler intellegent about linking?
Keywords: occam, compiler, inclusion, library, strategy
Date: 1 Sep 92 13:21:12 GMT
Organization: Computing Lab, The University, Canterbury, Kent. CT2 7NF, UK

If I have the following piece of skeleton occam,

{{{  SC
#USE code.lib
  {{{  SC   -- speed up compilation
  #USE code.lib
  }}}
}}}

does the code in my library get included twice?

Thanks,

Warren
Newsgroups: comp.sys.transputer
From: davidb@inmos.co.uk (David Boreham)
Subject: Re: Memory maped devices
Reply-To: davidb@inmos.co.uk (David Boreham)
Organization: INMOS Limited, Bristol, UK.
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 12:54:31 GMT

In article <1992Sep2.003439.2817@usage.csd.unsw.OZ.AU> rossm@aix04.csd.unsw.OZ.AU (ross mark) writes:
>
> I am a 4th year computer engineering student at the University
>of New South Wales, doing a thesis project on transputers.
>I wish to memory map some devices on to a transputer. What I would
>like to know has anyone done this before and if so was there any 
>problems in doing so. My other question are there any TRAM boards
>that give full access to all the pins of the transputer. From what
>I can see I will have to design my own board. Something I will 
>happily do but would prefer not to. Even if some one allready has
>designed their own board it would be a great help if I could get 
>a copy of the circuit.
>

Check out the IMS B430 Prototyping TRAM. This has a T222 (16-bit and
easier to interface simple peripherals to than a T805), SRAM/EPROM
sockets and all the transputer signals brought to pads around the
periphery of a protoytyping matrix area. 

This board has been used to implement countless interfaces quickly
and simply, including A/D, D/A, CAN, fiber-optic and DSP coprocessors.

David.


-- 
David Boreham, INMOS Limited | mail(uk): davidb@inmos.co.uk or ukc!inmos!davidb
Bristol,  England            |     (us): uunet!inmos.com!davidb
+44 454 616616 ex 547        | Internet: davidb@inmos.co.uk
From: bobw@GDSTECH.GRUMMAN.COM (Bob Waffenschmidt)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.transputer
Subject: S514C support software for for VxWorks
Date: 26 Aug 92 18:57:24 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: The Internet

if you know of a VxWorks for transputers please let me know.
From: scollins@lookout.it.uswc.uswest.com (Steven Collins)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.transputer
Subject: Mach port to transputer?
Date: 26 Aug 92 03:33:54 GMT
Organization: U S WEST Communications


Has anybody done any work on porting the Mach OS to the
transputer?
Thanks, Steve
-- 
||  Steve Collins          ||  INTERNET: scollins@uswest.com      ||
||  1475 Lawrence Ave #500 ||                                     ||
||  Denver, CO 80202       ||  US WEST Multimedia AE              ||
From: jcbhrb@nic.cerf.net (Jacob Hirbawi)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.transputer
Subject: RE: Memory maped devices
Date: 2 Sep 92 20:16:44 GMT
Organization: CERFnet

In comp.sys.transputer <1992Sep2.003439.2817@usage.csd.unsw.OZ.AU>
Ross Mark <rossm@aix04.csd.unsw.OZ.AU> writes :

> I am a 4th year computer engineering student at the University
> of New South Wales, doing a thesis project on transputers.
> I wish to memory map some devices on to a transputer. What I would
> like to know has anyone done this before and if so was there any 
> problems in doing so. My other question are there any TRAM boards
> that give full access to all the pins of the transputer. From what
> I can see I will have to design my own board. Something I will 
> happily do but would prefer not to. Even if some one allready has
> designed their own board it would be a great help if I could get 
> a copy of the circuit.

Someone once told me that the reason the (standard) TRAMS do not give you
direct access to the Transputer data and address lines is *specifically* to
prevent you from trying to memory map a device to the Transputer. The idea
is that you should use *link adapters* for that function so that all your 
I/O is done through channels. It's not a bad idea as far as modularity goes 
and I might have even considered it if the link speed were anywhere near the
I/O rate that you would get from direct memory access. Since that is not the
case, memory-mapped hardware still lives safely in the world of Transputers. 

There is only one problem that I am aware of in interfacing real hardware to
Transputers: if your device has a FIFO-type interface you have to make sure
that any dma to that device is *never* interrupted. I think this was a
recognized bug/feature on the T8's but I also had the same problem on T2's.
I *really* hope that Inmos fixes this problem with the T9000. Otherwise a
Transputers interface to a memory-mapped device looks like that of any other
processor. You might want to ask Inmos for some applications notes if you are
looking for circuits to get you started.

Jacob Hirbawi
JcbHrb@CERF.net
Newsgroups: comp.sys.transputer
From: rob@pact.nl (Rob Kurver)
Subject: Re: Good C++ or C Compilers?
Organisation: PACT, Delft, The Netherlands
Organization: Delft University of Technology
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 20:49:49 GMT

In <1992Aug31.180419.7091@ncsu.edu> dbt@adm.csc.ncsu.edu (David B. Teague) writes:

>  I am looking for a good C++ or C compiler for transputers. I would
>prefer one that uses extensions to the language to provide parallel
>constructs rather than using a series of function calls.

The PACT Parallel C compiler is an ANSI conforming C compiler for all
32-bits transputers, with language extensions for parallel processing.

The extensions include a par construct to start parallel threads, a
channel type for interthread communication, and an alt construct to
select between multiple channels and timeouts.

Both performance and ANSI conformance are very good.  It's very stable.

>--Jim (bray@wcuvax1.wcu.edu)

Please send me email with your surface address and I'll send you some
more info.

Best regards,

Rob Kurver, President
PACT Parallel Architecture and Compiler Technology

--
     PACT                   Rob Kurver
    Foulkeslaan 87         rob@pact.nl
   2625 RB Delft     ph: +31 15 616864 
  The Netherlands   fax: +31 15 610032
Newsgroups: comp.sys.transputer
From: rossm@aix04.csd.unsw.OZ.AU (ross mark)
Subject: Memory maped devices
Organization: University of New South Wales
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 00:34:39 GMT

 I am a 4th year computer engineering student at the University
of New South Wales, doing a thesis project on transputers.
I wish to memory map some devices on to a transputer. What I would
like to know has anyone done this before and if so was there any 
problems in doing so. My other question are there any TRAM boards
that give full access to all the pins of the transputer. From what
I can see I will have to design my own board. Something I will 
happily do but would prefer not to. Even if some one allready has
designed their own board it would be a great help if I could get 
a copy of the circuit.

Any suggestions or comments about memory maped devices would be
greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance

Ross M.

------------------------------------------------
email - rossm@cumulus.csd.unsw.oz.au
From: MJP@starlink.roe.ac.uk (Magnus Paterson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.transputer
Subject: Protocol query
Date: 4 Sep 92 12:51:00 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: The Internet


I'm trying to read sub-areas of a 2-d detector array, and would like to
be able to transfer these areas over Transputer links.  You can use
counted arrays  (INT::[]REAL32) for 1-d stuff, but is it possible to
achieve the same for 2-d?

I'd like to be able to do
  CHAN OF suitable.protocol in :
  [256][256]REAL32 data :
  INT nrows, ncolumns :
  SEQ
    in ? nrows; ncolumns; [[data FROM 0 FOR nrows] FROM 0 FOR ncolumns]

but can't for the life of me figure out how to declare the protocol, or
even whether it's possible.  


Cheers,   
Magnus Paterson                   mjp@uk.ac.roe.star
Royal Observatory                 ph  031 668 8247
Edinburgh                         fax 031 668 8264
Newsgroups: comp.sys.transputer
From: jan@pallas.neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de (Jan Vorbrueggen)
Subject: Re: Usage of in/out concerning iserver packets?
In-reply-to: michael@gandalf.moria's message of Sun, 30 Aug 92 13:04:21 +0100
Organization: Inst. f. Neuroinformatik, Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum, FRG
Date: 31 Aug 92 15:22:50

   While learning assembler, I wondered about how iserver is supposed to be
   used.  If two processes communicate with each other, the length of 
   corresponding 'in's and 'out's has to be same, right?  For the root 
   transputer exchanging data with the host, that doesn't matter, but what 
   for a router process which transports iserver packets between processes,
   e.g. to simulate a virtual transputer network?

   > In OCCAM these messages can be routed as INT16::[]BYTE protocol.

And this means that two seperate communications are performed: one,
transferring 2 bytes (an INT16) designating the length of the following
byte stream. The internal structure of a packet (eg, a PUTBLOCK or what
ever) is irrelevant to the router and is of concern only to the end users.
The aim is to reduce the necessary INs and OUTs and their associated
overhead  it's easier to have the sender pack it all into a byte array
and for the receiver to unpack it. Additionally, it's easy to extend the
protocol (apart from maximum buffer sizes) such that only interested parties
have to take note  a router doesn't and shouldn't care. The only things you
might want to add is addressing and possibly, control over multi/broadcasting.

 Jan Vorbrueggen, jan@Neuroinformatik.ruhrunibochum.de
From: moisan@irit.irit.fr (Bruno MOISAN)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.transputer
Subject: virtual reality and transputer
Date: 2 Sep 92 09:19:09 GMT
Organization: IRIT-UPS, Toulouse, France


	Sorry if it is the wrong group, but i'm lookink for informations about
some virtual reality systems based on transputer.

	If somebody can help me, please mail to moisan@irit.irit.fr

		Thanks in advance
		Bruno.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.transputer
From: dbt@adm.csc.ncsu.edu (David B. Teague)
Subject: Good C++ or C Compilers?
Followup-To: bray@wcuvax1.wcu.edu
Organization: wcuvax1.wcu.edu (Western Carolina University)
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 18:04:19 GMT

  I am looking for a good C++ or C compiler for transputers. I would
prefer one that uses extensions to the language to provide parallel
constructs rather than using a series of function calls. I am particularly interested in source-available free/public-domain/copylefted things like G++/gcc. Anyone porting gcc to the transputer? Thanks.

--Jim (bray@wcuvax1.wcu.edu)
From: php1dr@ph.surrey.ac.uk (Ramesh Rao)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.transputer
Subject: Looking for a Challenge
Date: 2 Sep 92 15:54:22 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: The Internet

Hi there,

Do you currently have a transputer/occam/parallel challenge for a PhD engineer with 3 years experience in occam and transputer programming for the simulation of fluidised bed combustors?  

The work entailed development of a transputer package for solving dense systems of linear equations in occam  using a systolic CSP architecture.  The package has since been used successfully in networ
ks with up to 64 transputers and is currently used for industrial R&D.

If the above sound interesting to you, please contact me at

Dr. S. Rafailidis
22 Fairway
Guildford GU2 5XH 
United Kingdom
Tel +44-483-61374
Fax +44-483-303807

and I will send you a comprehensive CV.

Many thanks
SR
From: pbiereic@TE1.HQ.ESO.ORG
Newsgroups: comp.sys.transputer
Subject: S514C support software for for VxWorks
Date: 26 Aug 92 14:00:05 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: The Internet


  For the Very Large Telescope (VLT) project, ESO is
  looking for INMOS transputer support software (S514C)
  which has been adapted for VxWorks (Wind River Systems). 
  This concerns:
  
        - INMOS driver for the B016 card
        - INMOS server software
  
  Do you know anybody who had such an application?
  
  Kind regards.
  
  European Southern Observatory
  Peter Biereichel
  Karl-Schwarzschild Str. 2
  D-8046 Garching / Muenchen
From: khan@eng.auburn.edu (Saqib A. Khan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.transputer
Subject: Pls rm me from mailing list
Date: 26 Aug 92 20:31:29 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: The Internet

Sorry if this gets into the wrong group, but pls remove me from the
transputer mailing list asap. Thanks in advance. 


-- Saqib
From: aph@ersys.edmonton.ab.ca (Al Hunt)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.transputer
Subject: Info Request: T9000 pr/avail?
Date: 2 Sep 92 14:48:11 GMT
Organization: Edmonton Remote Systems #1, Edmonton, AB, Canada

Hello all,
 
Some of our engineers have heard about the T9000 and must have one.
Does anybody have some information about pricing and or availability?
 
Even "4th quarter, about $10000 is what I saw in magazine X" would be
appreciated.  Some sort of indication as to where you got the information
would also be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Al Hunt
Technician
Sherritt Gordon Limited
Alberta, Canada

Al Hunt              aph@ersys.edmonton.ab.ca
From: tocherd@ul.ie
Newsgroups: comp.sys.transputer
Subject: B004 test programs wanted
Date: 1 Sep 92 11:50:42 GMT
Organization: University of Limerick, Ireland

Help! I need the suite of B004 test programs to check out a card. Can someone 
give me an FTP site or an alternative route for a copy?

David Tocher,
Dept of Maths,
University of Limerick,
Ireland
Newsgroups: comp.sys.transputer
From: bjorn@afrodite.fi.uib.no (Bjorn Hjertaker)
Subject: Transputer Hardware Courses
Followup-To: comp.sys.transputer
Organization: Dept. of Physics, Univ. of Bergen, Norway
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 92 12:41:46 GMT

I need information on possible transputer hardware courses held this fall,
preferably in Europe. The course must include interfacing to DSPs like i860
/ C40.

Best wishes
Bjorn
From: tjh@iesd.auc.dk (Thomas J. Hansen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.transputer
Subject: HELP
Date: 4 Sep 92 10:06:29 GMT
Distribution: comp
Organization: Mathematics and Computer Science, Aalborg University

I have a couple of questions for the transputer community :

	1) Does anyone know how to contact Perihelion Software (We are
	   told this might be somewhat difficult) ? 

	2) Does Telmat have an e-mail address, and if so, what is it.

	3) Does anyone have any performance measurements for the
	   Telmat T.node (T800) / Helios constellation ? Especially
	   concerning the message passing/ process creation overheads.

	4) Does anyone know the protocol used by client of the Helios
	   tla debugging server ?

	5) Does anyone know of a MACH implementation for the Telmat
	   T.node.

Any replies to any of these questions will be greatly appreciated.

Best regards

Thomas J Hansen
Aalborg University, Institute of Electronic Systems.
(E-mail tjh@iesd.auc.dk)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.transputer
From: conor@lion.inmos.co.uk (Conor O'Neill)
Subject: Re: Usage of in/out concerning iserver packets?
Reply-To: conor@inmos.co.uk (Conor O'Neill)
Organization: INMOS Limited, Bristol, UK.
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 08:36:39 GMT

In article <92083073@gandalf.moria> u31b3hs@pool.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (Michael Haardt) writes:
>> Every communication, both to and from the server, is a counted array of
>> bytes.  The first two bytes are a (little endian) count of the following
>> message length.
>> 
>> In OCCAM these messages can be routed as INT16::[]BYTE protocol.
>
>An example for a data packet is the PutBlock Function:
>
>> To server:    BYTE           Tag = 24
>>               INT32          StreamId
>>               INT16::[]BYTE  Data
>
>Somehow I don't understand it.  How will the packet be sent?
>
>-   INT16, rest as single BYTEs
>-   INT16, rest as one block of BYTEs (I have no knowledge of OCCAM, sorry)
>-   INT16, BYTE, INT32, INT16, rest as single BYTEs
>-   INT16, BYTE, INT32, INT16, rest as one block of BYTEs


This will be sent, as mentioned above, as an OCCAM counted array protocol.
On existing transputers, this is implemented by sending a length
(in the format specified by the protocol), and then sending another
single communication which is that many bytes long.
Therefore your second choice is correct.

Given the declarations

  PROTOCOL SP IS INT16 :: []BYTE :
  CHAN OF SP ts, fs :
  INT16 len :
  [lots]BYTE buffer :

pseudo-code for

  SEQ
    ...  pack data into 'buffer'
    ts ! len :: buffer

    fs ? len :: buffer
    ...  unpack data from 'buffer'

would look like:

  SEQ
    ...  pack data into 'buffer'
    ts ! len   -- two bytes, since len is an INT16
    IF
      len <> 0
        ts ! [buffer FROM 0 FOR (INT len)] -- 'len' bytes
      TRUE
        SKIP
        
    fs ? len   -- two bytes, since len is an INT16
    IF
      len <> 0
        fs ? [buffer FROM 0 FOR (INT len)] -- 'len' bytes
      TRUE
        SKIP
    ...  unpack data from 'buffer'

(However, on the T9000, the variable length i/o instructions will be used).

Note too, that the data which is packed into the buffer will often be
mis-aligned, and therefore should be copied into and out of 'buffer'
using a 'move' instruction rather than 'ldnl' and 'stnl' etc.

---
Conor O'Neill, Software Group, INMOS Ltd., UK.
UK: conor@inmos.co.uk		US: conor@inmos.com
"It's state-of-the-art" "But it doesn't work!" "That is the state-of-the-art".
From: tbjorkho@RA.ABO.FI (Tom Bj|rkholm AT)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.transputer
Subject: S514C support software for for VxWorks
Date: 26 Aug 92 19:39:26 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: The Internet

On the World Occam and Transputer Users groups 15th technical
meeting in Aberdeen 12th to 15th of April 1992, there was a
poster:
	Transputer based active optics system for galileo
	telescope, by F Bortoletto, C Bonoli, D Fantinel,
	R Ragazzoni, Telescopio Nazionale Galileo, Padova,
	Italy.

It was presented by Dr. Favio Bortoletto from Osservatorio Astronomico
Padova, Italy. 

I am sorry but I don't have Dr. Bortoletto's address. If you can't
find it you could probalby get it from the conference organiser of
WOTUG15, Dr. Alistair Allen, email: a.allen@abdn.ac.uk,
fax: +44 224 491 179.

Hope this helps,

Tom
----
Tom Bjorkholm
Process Design Laboratory             Phone: +358 21 654 863
Department of Chemical Engineering    Fax:   +358 21 654 479
Abo Akademi University                Internet: tbjorkho@ra.abo.fi
Biskopsgatan 8                           or:    tbjorkholm@finabo.abo.fi
SF-20500 Abo                          Bitnet:   TBJORKHOLM@FINABO
FINLAND                               Nordunet: ABOVAX::TBJORKHOLM
From: rizec@sun.pcl.ac.uk (Luis Ruiz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.transputer
Subject: (none)
Date: 4 Sep 92 10:24:50 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: The Internet

Subject: Subject: 
Newsgroups: comp.sys.transputer
From: michael@gandalf.moria (Michael Haardt)
Subject: Usage of in/out concerning iserver packets?
Reply-To: u31b3hs@pool.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (Michael Haardt)
Organization: An old and gray machine, somewhere in Moria.
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 92 13:04:21 +0100

While learning assembler, I wondered about how iserver is supposed to be
used.  If two processes communicate with each other, the length of 
corresponding 'in's and 'out's has to be same, right?  For the root 
transputer exchanging data with the host, that doesn't matter, but what 
for a router process which transports iserver packets between processes,
e.g. to simulate a virtual transputer network?

Do all commercial iserver libraries use the same in/out protocol, which 
is given by the OCCAM data structures?

> Every communication, both to and from the server, is a counted array of
> bytes.  The first two bytes are a (little endian) count of the following
> message length.
>
> In OCCAM these messages can be routed as INT16::[]BYTE protocol.

An example for a data packet is the PutBlock Function:

> To server:    BYTE           Tag = 24
>               INT32          StreamId
>               INT16::[]BYTE  Data

Somehow I don't understand it.  How will the packet be sent?

-   INT16, rest as single BYTEs
-   INT16, rest as one block of BYTEs (I have no knowledge of OCCAM, sorry)
-   INT16, BYTE, INT32, INT16, rest as single BYTEs
-   INT16, BYTE, INT32, INT16, rest as one block of BYTEs

I hope there is a convention.  Or am I totally wrong?

Michael
From: steve@acorn.co.uk (Steve "daffy" Hunt)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: OS differences and improvements (Was Re: new PC's, what's happening acorn?)
Date: 2 Sep 92 15:59:12 GMT
Organization: Acorn Computers Limited, Cambridge, UK
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5

Pete Goodwin (goodwin@edieng.enet.dec.com) wrote:

: Whenever I read UNIX shell scripts they read like gibberish. Full of strange
: characters like ~ ` ' # or $. You need to be a real expert to see what's going
: on.

But on the other hand, a "real expert" can use the UNIX shells to
write non-trivial programs in a very high-level fashion.  Structures
like backquote-substitution, "here" documents, subshells, named
functions, signal handling and piping to/from command groups elevate
the shell far above being a mere CLI.  I have not seen comparable
programming power in other system's shells.

As far as the choice of command names goes, I once saw an interesting
paper in the proceedings of some HCI conference or other.  It
presented the results of a study into how easy people found it to
memorise command names.  They found no significant difference between
memorability of "obvious" versus "abstract" names.  (There was a lot
more to their findings than that, but I've lost the paper now).


: Only if you've been tainted by MSDOS (using you're description 8) I've never
: used backspace as delete, I've always used DELETE.

You can remap the delete-character key on all versions of UNIX that I've seen.

-- Steve.
-- 

				Steve Hunt	steve@acorn.co.uk