K312240@AEARN.BITNET (Klaus Kusche) (09/27/88)
Dear Mailing List! In the following, I'll post some impressions from the CONPAR 88 exhibition in Manchester. HARDWARE: ========= There were lots of PC boards, but the more serious work seems to be done on SUN hosts (nobody is really happy with the PC HW&SW). Still, there is no stand-alone transputer hardware (i.e. running with no host). Transtech: ---------- They had the widest and nicest selection of PC boards, among others: * 17 T's with no ext. RAM on one board. * 9 T's with 1MB each, plus C004, on one board. * PC boards with interrupt & DMA facilities. * A graphics board (with not much software, sorry). * A disk board (A single board containing a fast (28ms) 20 - 100 MB 3'' hard disk, a M212 disk transputer based controller, a PC interface (DMA), and 4 TRAM sites. Software for accessing disk directly via link for TDS- and afserver-based applications, and for accessing disk from PC as MSDOS D: drive, but *not* yet for Helios-PC). * A PS/2 TRAM motherboard with 2*2 TRAM sites and fast DMA. The board was 2 days old! (Software: Currently only TDS, afserver being under development). * TRAM modules of extreme density, e.g. 4MB, size 2, or 8 MB, size 4, all with 0 or 1 wait at 20 MHz, with parity. However, they are very high, occupying the next PC slot. * Ethernet, graphics and disk modules under development. * Niche products for Sun's (SW looks impressive, nicely integrated in SunOS, they networked it with the transputers on the Niche machine in the next room). * Atari ABAQ & Perihelion card box: Yes, it really works (running Helios), but it is not yet in a single box (still Mega-ST plus external boards), and it has no local disk yet (still uses slow ST disk). Parsys: ------- This is a company of Thorn-Emi producing the ESPRIT Supernode machine, they had two of them there and running: Mid to large range (16 to at least 1024 T's), 1/4 (SRAM) or 4 or 16 (DRAM) MB / Transp., special link switch (just another chip, not C004 and not Meiko's), local disk interfaces, a lot of debugging and monitoring hardware, needs PC or Sun host (standalone systems planned), runs TDS or IDRIS (see below). Others: ------- Meiko, Caplin, ... have been there, but offered no sensations. Inmos: ------ Just showed the flight simulator. SOFTWARE: ========= There was no new software running, but lots of rumors: * Ada (Meiko, Inmos) * Lisp (Parsys (still confidential) and some others) * Prolog (many companies, most based on Brainware's CS-Prolog, others coming from Edinburgh) * Inmos will perhaps support some kind of UNIX or Helios (not yet decided) * Definicon will offer CUBIX and EXPRESS (Operating system kernels and I/O & message passing libraries based on Caltec Hypercube developments, compatible with Cros III). AI Limited: ----------- They will offer a Prolog-like environment for AI and symbolic computation SW development, including a new language, on a wide range of machines (Transputer systems, intel Hypercubes, ...) in 1Q89. Parsys: ------- They offer the first real UNIX for multi-transputer systems: * Whitesmith IDRIS (well known on Z80, MC 680x0, ...). * Conforms completely to the POSIX standard * Supports multiple users (again at most one user per transputer) with protection * Does not page, but *does* swap. * Full ANSI C, full ISO Pascal, full UNIX utilities * and many other nice features... The bad news: They have an *exclusive* contract with Whitesmith, IDRIS will not be avail on any other transputer system... Ask for more details, tell me if I missed something or said something wrong! Klaus Kusche (K312240@AEARN.BITNET).
PVR%bgerug51.earn@NSS.CS.UCL.AC.UK (Patrick Van Renterghem / Transputer Lab) (09/28/88)
Dear Mailing List! > From: IN%"K312240%bitnet.aearn@TCGOULD.TN.CORNELL.EDU" > Subj: CONPAR '88 product news > Transtech: > ---------- > They had the widest and nicest selection of PC boards, among others: > * 17 T's with no ext. RAM on one board. That is actually Quintek's Fast17 > * 9 T's with 1MB each, plus C004, on one board. and their Fast9 > * A graphics board (with not much software, sorry). But B007 compatible > * Niche products for Suns (software looks impressive, nicely integrated in > SunOS, they networked it with the transputers on the Niche machine in > the next room). The environment is called PRE and is indeed rather impressive (okay, we haven't seen Topologix not Cogent yet) > Inmos: > ------ > Just showed the flight simulator. Same thing in So'ton, but they promised to bring lots of technical notes to Antwerp. > SOFTWARE: > ========= > There was no new software running, but lots of rumors: > * Ada (Meiko, Inmos) Peter Cavill told us that this will become available in '89, it is actually Inmos and Alsys. > * Lisp (Parsys (still confidential) and some others) There are PD versions of XLisp and Little Smalltalk available from the National Transputer Support Centre in Sheffield > * Definicon will offer CUBIX and EXPRESS (Operating system kernels and > I/O & message passing libraries based on Caltec Hypercube developments, > compatible with Cros III). Express and Cubix are products of ParaSoft, a US company, that can be reached via john salmon, johns@tybalt.caltech.edu. > AI Limited: > ----------- > They will offer a Prolog-like environment for AI and symbolic > computation SW development, including a new language, on a wide range of > machines (Transputer systems, intel Hypercubes, ...) in 1Q89. Who/Where is AI Ltd. ? > Ask for more details, tell me if I missed something or said something > wrong! Idem dito. See you in Antwerp, Patrick