rainer@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Rainer Malzbender) (06/15/91)
We just got one of the $236 kits, primarily to get students to play with transputers without eating up time on our bigger T800 network. It seems like a great deal, although I haven't used it much. I replaced the T400 with a T800 and added 4 Mb of DRAM (we ordered from Microprocessors Unlimited, see their Computer Shopper ad), and it appears to work fine. One thing to be aware of: even though the kit comes with lots of software and documentation, the compilers are somewhat stripped down versions of the regular programs. Both the C and Occam compilers support only the T400 and are "limited to use with the kit" (how does one enforce that ??). They come from Inmos and Logical Systems. We plan on running TDS (I was told by a CSA person that this is possible, but haven't tried it). Apparently the kit emulates an Inmos B003. Judging from the overall quality of the kit (they even include schematics - who does *that* any more ?) I'd have to recommend CSA quite highly. By the way, if you add 1M x 4 chips, make sure to specify 300 mil packages, since when I ordered mine I received 400 mils which didn't fit. We paid something like $42 per chip for the skinny ones. -- Rainer Malzbender Dept. of Physics (303)492-6829 U. of Colorado, Boulder rainer@boulder.colorado.edu 128.138.240.246