mit@hutcs.hut.FI (Markku Tamminen) (04/12/89)
I would like to connect our Unix-world to transputers through Ethernet, and I
am looking for references in this area.
It seems that for the architecture I am considering the Ethernet bandwidth
would be sufficient, and could't be worse than that obtained when going through
a PC. (The application is high-end rendering with raytracing/radiosity, and the
global architecture is a workstation farm connected by TCP/IP. The transputer
network should look globally just like another farm member. It need only be
accessed by one application at a time. The transputer network itself would use
more sophisticated farming without data replication.) Wre are using the
Logical Systems C-compiler and doing cross-development from Unix.
At OUG-10 I heard the interesting talk of Roger Peel on his system. The
purpose of this inquiry is to check what other software and experiences
there are around.
Also I already received the following most interesting answer:
From: paul%amos@ucsd.edu (Paul Smith)
To: mit@hutcs.hut.fi
Yes, indeed I can offer something. We have a TCP/IP driver working
between our Sun and our transputer network. We have a B011 in the sun
and 4 CSA boards hanging off that. We have an IP kernel running on each
of the transputers in the network. You can ping any of the transputers
from the sun (and our Vax, connected to the sun via ethernet), and of
course send any other packets. We mainly use the IP kernel as a debugging
tool because we don't want the routing overhead for our application. The
overhead isn't really too bad though. The kernel has a couple of bugs in
it that I'm trying to get someone to fix, but it's very useful as is. The
bug(s) shows up when multiple transputers are trying to send to the sun
at the same time, this occasionally hangs the network. All of our software
is written with Logical Systems C and is available free to anyone. Feel
free to forward this info to anyone who queries you, or post it if you
like.
Paul
If you are using similar architectures or know of relevant software
(university or other), please send me a note. I know that INMOS has their IMS
B407 board and that Perihelion also have an Ethernet connection.
Thanks,
Markku Tamminen
INTERNET: mit@hutcs.hut.fi
ARPANET: mit%hutcs.uucp%fingate.bitnet@cunyvm.cuny.edu
CSNET: mit%hutcs@hut.fi
BITNET: mit%hutcs.uucp@fingate
UUCP: mcvax!hutcs!mit
Helsinki University of Technology
Laboratory of Information Processing Science
02150 ESPOO 15 FINLAND
Tel: 358-0-4513248 (messages: 4513229, home: 710317)
Telex: 125161 HTKK SF
Telefax: 358-0-465077