bebop@trwspf.TRW.COM (Allen Takatsuka) (05/05/88)
I am interested in any experience anyone has had interfacing transputers
to a SUN workstation. I am specifically interested in the interface between
the transputer system and SUN's SunView windowing environment.
Any information on this would be greatly appreciated. Also helpful would
be information on the VME interface transputer products people have used,
as well as any experience with related software.
Thanks in advance.
Allen T.
--
Allen M. Takatsuka - (213) 535-3785
TRW, One Space Park O2/1779, Redondo Beach, CA 90278
bebop%trwspf@brand.usc.edu
bebop%trwspf@trwrb.trw.com
bebop@trwspf.trw.com
{sdcrdcf,scgvaxd,ucbvax,decvax}!trwrb!trwspf!bebopddd@THUMPER.BELLCORE.COM (Dorothy DeLuca) (05/09/88)
You might want to get in touch with someone from Topologix. They have a board and all the necessary software to use the transputer (T800's) in a sun environment. Their product literature looks very good. They could also possibly give you the names of someone who uses their products. I believe the product is through Beta and available to all. The address and phone number is: Topologix 4860 Ward Rd. Denver, CO 80033 (303) 421-7700 Dorothy DeLuca ddd@thumper.bellcore.com ihnp4!bellcore!thumper!ddd
anc@camcon.uucp (Adrian Cockcroft) (05/16/88)
In article <751@trwspf.TRW.COM>, bebop@trwspf.TRW.COM (Allen Takatsuka) writes: > I am interested in any experience anyone has had interfacing transputers > to a SUN workstation. I am specifically interested in the interface between > the transputer system and SUN's SunView windowing environment. There have been several approaches, broadly 1) a serial link adaptor on the VME bus 2) dual ported memory between VME and Transputer 3) a hybrid of the two Approach 1) is easy but slow, Meiko, Parsytec and others have interface boards based on it. Expect 60Kb/s Maximum. Approach 2) is faster. Topologix's board has 4 T800's, one of which is dual ported onto the bus. The Inmos B011 (Tadpole TSC) which is a normal sized VME board also has dual ported RAM. Kodak have launched a parallel image processing system based on SUNs/Transputers that uses dual ported RAM. Approach 3) is used by Niche Technology. They have a T4 with 64Kb of fast dual ported static RAM that acts as an intelligent interface controller. It talks to the SUN via 8 8Kbyte buffers, four in and four out, which map onto its four links. The Unix device driver appears the same as an inmos link for read/write system calls which go through to the processors hanging off the links. For a SUN 3/260 the performance is measured as 700 Kb/s to the Transputer and 160 Kb/s to the SUN (using large blocks and the Niche "perf" utility). Niche also have a perfmeter-like "naxmeter" that monitors the throughput on a device driver. Their board is based on four "sites" of 8 inmos-compatible TRAM "modules". For up to 32 T800's/motherboard and up to 8 motherboards/SUN. The most popular module is a double width 2Mb one giving 16 T800's and 32Mb per motherboard. They have the pentasoft C and Fortran Compilers (as well as TDS and afserver software) and will soon have a parallel runtime enviroment that will allow transparent migration of Unix processes down to Transputers. To delare my bias I should say that we have been beta testing for Niche since last year (they have been shipping to UK customers from early april) and we were involved in setting them up and have a small equity stake. Niche Data Systems Inc in the USA (Houston) are on (713) 751-0055 Niche Technology Ltd in the UK (Bristol) are on (0272) 298034 -- | Adrian Cockcroft anc@camcon.uucp ..!seismo!mcvax!ukc!camcon!anc -[T]- Cambridge Consultants Ltd, Science Park, Cambridge CB4 4DW, | England, UK (0223) 358855 (You are in a maze of twisty little C004's, all alike...)
andy@snowwhite.UUCP (Andy Pfiffer) (05/25/88)
+---- Adrian Cockcroft, "Subject: Re: SUN (VME) Interface" - 05/16/88 @ 9:26am | | There have been several approaches, broadly | | 1) a serial link adaptor on the VME bus | | 2) dual ported memory between VME and Transputer | | 3) a hybrid of the two +---- +---- | Approach 2) is faster. Topologix's board has 4 T800's, one of which is | dual ported onto the bus. +---- Actually, it is more like 3) above. There is a link adaptor on board which does straddle the VME bus. All external memory (up to 16MB) of the first T800 on the board is dual-ported onto the VME bus as well. When sufficient quantities of 4Mb DRAM is available, we'll put up to 64MB of DRAM per T800. Faster still is what is planned for our "C" boards: all 4 T800's per board can be software selected to dual-port their external memory into the VME bus. Other goodies include VME mastership and block-mode transfer. ...stay tuned, more to come! -- Andy Pfiffer Topologix, Inc. (303) 421-7700 Trillium Diving Team (ret.) 4860 Ward Road / Denver, CO 80033 "...that's the way a Transputer works, right?"