bgr@long-grain.Rice.EDU (Robert G. Rhode) (07/26/89)
Does anyone know anything about the Atari Tansputer Workstation? Does it really exist? I'd like to know more about it. Robert Rhode | "Today's champion bgr@uncle-bens.rice.edu | is tomorrow's crocodile shit." rhode@ricevm1.rice.edu | Monty Python : Contractual Obligation Album
l86@nikhefh.hep.nl (Hugo Burm) (07/27/89)
In article <234@brazos.Rice.edu> rhode@ricevm1.rice.edu writes: >Does anyone know anything about the Atari Tansputer Workstation? >Does it really exist? I'd like to know more about it. > > >Robert Rhode | "Today's champion >bgr@uncle-bens.rice.edu | is tomorrow's crocodile shit." >rhode@ricevm1.rice.edu | Monty Python : Contractual Obligation Album Yes it exists. An Atari dealer in Amsterdam has one in its shop (you can buy it). It runs a Unix-like OS called Helios that distributes tasks over the transputers, e.g.: if you type "ls | wc" , one transputer lists the directory to a neigbouring transputer (if available) which does the counting. The user interface is a csh clone running in a window under X-windows. The X-windows interface is very fast. The ATW's graphic capabilities are impressive (from 1280x960 in 16 colors down to 512x480 in (24+8) bits true color). I did some programming in C and F77 on an ATW containing two add-on farmcards, that is a total of nine transputers (90 MIPS, 13.5 Mflops). The compilers and linker are not very fast (mainly due to the slow disk access via the 68000 I/O subsystem), but the resulting programs are fast. You can compile three files on three transputers, write the results to a fifo buffer and link them on a fourth transputer, all 'in parallel'. The price of a one T800 ATW is about $7500. This may change since I am talking about pre-production models for software developers.
ENGLE@A.ISI.EDU (07/28/89)
I have played with an ATW while visiting an undisclosed software developer. The machine is very nice and rns a very responsive X-windows implementation. It seems like a reasonable machine to do serious parallel software development on. If only Atari would get its act togethor and sell the thing. They won't even return phone calls from developers. Steven W. Engle Senior AI Software Engineer MIMD Systems Inc.
q1aqf@ingram.newcastle.ac.uk (A Waterworth) (07/31/89)
In article <234@brazos.Rice.edu> rhode@ricevm1.rice.edu writes: >Does anyone know anything about the Atari Tansputer Workstation? >Does it really exist? I'd like to know more about it. [First of all, apologies if someone else has already replied to this...] The Atari Transputer Workstation _does_ exist and seems to be pretty close to full development. We have a fault-tolerant processor project here at Newcastle and are using Transputers (in a TMR configuration) to construct fault-tolerant and fail-silent processors. Sometime fairly soon, I think that we will be receiving one (or more?) ATWs to serve as front ends to a Transputer farmcage which we already have (the ATWs will be used in place of a PC-AT which we are presently using). As regards further information, we used to have a glossy fact sheet about the darned beastie lying around the office here, but I can't seem to find it. So, here goes from memory... The ATW uses a T800-20, with an M68000 as an I/O processor. It has 4 Meg of memory for the T800 (120ns dynamic RAM) and 512K for the 68000. These can be expanded internally up to 16M (eventually 64M) and 4M respectively. It also has 1M of fast dual port RAM (100ns) as video memory. The 68000 I/O subsystem is based upon the Mega-ST computer and can function independently of the Transputer, supporting RS232, DMA, Parallel Port, Midi Ports, Floppy disks (3.5 or 5.25), SCSI and a Mouse/Joystick Port, as well as its own independent RGB/composite video monitor if required. The standard hard disk will be 40M SCSI, but larger disks will be available as options. The system's graphics capabilities range from 1280x960 resolution in 16 from 4096 colours to 512x480 resolution in "True colour". Both the T800 system and the 68000 subsystem can be expanded (4 slots for the T800, 1 for the 68000). The T800 bus will take extra Transputers or RAM, along with X25, Ethernet cards etc. etc. The operating system is Helios (Unix look-alike), with X-windows as its user interface. I have heard that much of the X-windows stuff is done in hardware, but I'm not certain whether that is true - I think it is. Oh, and the whole thing arrives in a fairly standard looking tower enclosure, with a separate monitor and standard Atari keyboard (_very_ similar to an Atari ST). UK prices are of the order of 5000 pounds, plus the cost of a suitable monitor (e.g. NEC MulitSync Plus). However, I don't know whether this includes V.A.T. (Sales Tax). If it does, the actual price will be of the order of 4350 pounds (plus monitor). Perihelion in Cambridge, UK (the developers of Helios) know a lot more about it (as do Atari, presumably!!). Hope this was of some help... Adrian W. P.S. [disclaim...disclaim...] I can't vouch 100% for the truth of all this information, although the technical details were taken from the fact sheet (I finally found the blasted thing!!). _______________________________________________________________________ * | * * FROM : Adrian Waterworth. PHONE : +44 91 222 6000 | /\ / * * JANET : A.Waterworth@uk.ac.newcastle | /__\ /\ / * * UUCP : ...!ukc!newcastle.ac.uk!A.Waterworth | / \/ \/ * * ARPA : A.Waterworth@newcastle.ac.uk | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ * * POST : Computing Laboratory, | \ /\ /\ * * University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, | \--/ \/ \ * * UK. NE1 7RU | \/ \ * * | * -----------------------------------------------------------------------
mem@zinn.MV.COM (Mark E. Mallett) (08/07/89)
In article <1989Jul31.082920.11837@newcastle.ac.uk> comp.sys.transputer writes: >UK prices are of the order of 5000 pounds, plus the cost of a suitable >monitor (e.g. NEC MulitSync Plus). However, I don't know whether this >includes V.A.T. (Sales Tax). If it does, the actual price will be of the >order of 4350 pounds (plus monitor). I saw the ATW at SIGGRAPH in Boston the other day, and asked about pricing and US availability. I was told that the price would be in the 5000 to 8000 range. At the time, I thought the fellow was talking dollars. He also said that Atari was shooting for US release in December, with limited distribution (1000/month) through "selected dealers." -mm- -- Mark E. Mallett Zinn Computer Co/ PO Box 4188/ Manchester NH/ 03103 Bus. Phone: 603 645 5069 Home: 603 424 8129 BIX: mmallett uucp: mem@zinn.MV.COM ( ...{decvax|elrond|harvard}!zinn!mem ) Northern MA and Southern NH consultants: Ask (in mail!) about MV.COM
ramsiri@blake.acs.washington.edu (Enartloc Nhoj) (12/30/89)
Where can i get accurate specs on the ATW... and where/for how much.. can i buy one? -Thanks kevin ramsiri@blake.acs.washington.edu
ramsiri@blake.acs.washington.edu (Enartloc Nhoj) (01/01/90)
Can anybody out there who is using or has at least put a fair amount of time on the ATW post a few observations about its power and software etc... Likes and dislikes... Apprecitate it. -kevin ramsiri@blake.acs.washington.edu
falk@vax1.physik.fu-berlin.dbp.DE (01/11/90)
kevin (ramsiri@blake.acs.washington.edu) writes: >Where can i get accurate specs on the >ATW... and where/for how much.. can i >buy one? I have an ATW800, so I might somewhat clarify the situation: Price (count #1 = DM2.7) DM 14500 + Tax. (Dec 89) Specs: 1 T800-20MHz (4MByte-70ns), 1 MC68000 (1MB Atari ST with all ports); 1 Videoboard (1MByte, 1260x960-4bit, 1024x768-8bit, 512^2-24bit, Graphics proc. with peak-rate of 128 MPxl/s); 40MB SCSI drive, prepared for 2nd one, MS-DOS 720KByte 3'5 floppy. Helios Netversion (without C compiler). X-Windows v11.2 (only server and most important xclients. this version does not seem to use the graphic proc., performance below) Add On's: 8 to 24 MByte main-mem with 1Mbit DRams, up to 3 farmcards (a 4 T800-20 with 1MB each) in box. (Ethernet TCP/IP and Berkeley filesystem announced for spring) Software: all Helios (compiler [C,Pascal,f77,..], C-debugger, par-C, TDS, TeX. Graphics packages, Ray-Trace, flight sim., neural nets ... in progress). Performance: Dhrystone: 2500 (bad!). with Helios `Accelerate`=4000. completely on-chip I expect 6000. [Perihelion C v1.1] Floats: 0.3 - 1.7 MFlops, depending on compiler etc. (for f77 there is an optimizing pre-processor.) X-Windows: I hereby publish my X-Bench results of Dec89: Machine Server Planes line fill blit text arc cmplx xstones R ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Siemens 9733-203 11.2 8 61216 14878 19142 24635 566337 18836 23218 b SonyNews 1850 color 16514 14477 25208 21656 598290 37124 20481 a DECstation 3100 8 78115 6913 7292 79193 231587 16143 15735 a Sun 3/50 purdue 1 14644 11489 16639 15312 43379 9745 14160 a Sun 3/160 11.2 1 11536 10618 9021 11250 233545 10784 11035 b ATW800 i4 mode0 11.2 4/8 21407 10207 4100 31565 347937 10327 11028 d Sun386/250 (tuned) 8 29034 4434 6605 25437 44181 9215 10161 c Sun 3/50 11.3 1 10000 10000 10000 10000 10000 10000 10000 a ATW800 i4 mode1 11.2 8 21119 7777 3515 29631 334269 8889 9433 d NCD16 XTerminal 1 6366 5612 11771 15312 10455 7516 8469 a DEC gpx 11.2 8 4835 7892 5710 30937 390212 5490 8250 b Visual 640 XTerminal 1 5532 3554 4893 8020 28662 3032 5124 a SPARCstation 1 color 4877 1227 3006 9739 189817 12287 3424 a Sun386/250 8 1942 445 1319 3191 44825 4751 1291 b ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- References: a) iX Multiuser Multitasking Magazin 4/1989 page 19. b) Siemens Munich by SP-4's Hacker-clan (authors of X-Bench). c) Kiezmann in Berlin. d) Falk Langhammer at FU Berlin. I do not believe that the current server has much blitter support. => big improvements awaited... Dealers: Atari USA, GB, D, ... for D: Goeken Atari Postfach 1213 D - 6096 Raunheim (I do not have any relationship with Atari, I just bought an ATW.) Summary: I am quite satisfied with my machine, provided that all the minor problems will be solved in the near future, i.e. a serious file-system, more tools, Ethernet support (TCP/IP, NFS), improvement of X-Window scrolling speed and cheaper farmcards. Helios, of course does have good network facilities to other Helios nodes via link. But still there are machines without any link.. The ATW addresses to the workstation market rather than the number- cruncher card market. A single transputer ATW is slightly outperformed by the DecStation 2100 at the same price, but it has much more chances not to be outdated in 3 years. (my first contribution to this forum) Ciao, folks. Falk Langhammer, a physicist. falk@vax1.physik.fu-berlin.dbp.de