koreth@ssyx.ucsc.edu (Steven Grimm) (03/03/88)
Is it just me, or does it seem like the only messages posted in this group are requests for additions/deletions from the mailing list? A while back someone said he was going to post a transputer instruction set list; is that still going to appear? Also, has anyone heard anything about the Atari Abaq (beyond what was posted in comp.sys.atari.st, which may have been crossposted here and which I can dig up if someone would like to see it...) +New! Improved! Now 100% Artificial-+-+-----------------------------------+ |# # @@@ **** &&&&& $$$$$ % %| |Steven Grimm | |# # @ @ * * & $ % %+-+ ARPA: koreth@ssyx.ucsc.edu | |### @ @ **** &&&& $ %%%%%| | UUCP: ...!ucbvax!ucscc!ssyx!koreth| |# # @ @ * * & $ % %+-+ ______________________________| |# # @@@ * ** &&&&& $ % %| | |"Let's see what's out there."| +-----with NutraSour(TM)! No natural colors or preservatives!------------+
martin@lakesys.UUCP (Martin Wiedmeyer) (03/04/88)
In article <2176@saturn.ucsc.edu> koreth@ssyx.ucsc.edu (Steven Grimm) writes: >Also, has anyone heard anything about the Atari Abaq >(beyond what was posted in comp.sys.atari.st, which may have been crossposted >here and which I can dig up if someone would like to see it...) > Steven, I for one would like to see the Abaq info. Is it any more than the Atari company hype? (Hope so....) Looking forward to your post, Marty Wiedmeyer -- | Marty Wiedmeyer | | Lake Systems, Milwaukee, WI | | UUCP: {ihnp4,uwvax}!uwmcsd1!lakesys!martin | | Disclaimer: I take the heat for my own (mis)statements..... |
dbc5390@acf5.NYU.EDU (David B. Chorlian) (03/05/88)
of interesting information and useful bibiography. No info about when the product will be available though. David B. Chorlian dbc5390@acf5.nyu.edu References: <2176@saturn.ucsc.edu> <480@lakesys.UUCP>
anc@camcon.uucp (Adrian Cockcroft) (03/12/88)
In article <480@lakesys.UUCP>, martin@lakesys.UUCP (Martin Wiedmeyer) writes: > In article <2176@saturn.ucsc.edu> koreth@ssyx.ucsc.edu (Steven Grimm) writes: > >Also, has anyone heard anything about the Atari Abaq > >(beyond what was posted in comp.sys.atari.st, which may have been crossposted > >here and which I can dig up if someone would like to see it...) > > > > Steven, > > I for one would like to see the Abaq info. Is it any more than the > Atari company hype? (Hope so....) > If you write to Perihelion they should be able to send you the Helios Developers Notes, this gives an overview and I posted most of the info last November to comp.sys.transputer, comp.sys.atari.st and comp.sys.amiga. Since then a group of friends has coughed up 50 pounds to become registered developers and we are getting manuals sent to us and offers of beta release hardware for porting applications. So far we have the Helios Developer's Manual which gives an overview of the system structure, details of the C compiler, assembler and libraries. Also the Helios Technical Manual which describes the message passing system, kernel, nucleus, servers, file formats etc. We are waiting for the Helios User's manual (shell and X-windows) and the hardware manual. The machine was previewed in Personal Computer World for Feb 88. As a quick overview the basic machine has a single T800-20 with 4Mb of main RAM and 1Mb of video RAM; an interface to an Atari Mega ST containing a 68450 DMA controller, Inmos Link adaptor and SCSI controller; three expansion slots that can take extra memory (4Mb or 16Mb per card) or extra T800's (4 of with 1Mb each per card). Other I/O ports are driven via the Mega ST. There are two configurations, one is an extension box for a standard Mega ST; the other is an all in one system that has a cut down ST circuit built into the Abaq. The graphics is always driven by the T800 so the Mega ST graphics is not needed. ST applications running on the 68000 that use GEM traps are translated to appear on the Abaq screen (this wastes the T800 but gives access to existing software). Display modes are 1280 * 960 * 4bpp (4096 colours) 1024 * 768 * 8bpp (16M colours) 640 * 480 * 8bpp (16M colours) 512 * 480 * 32bpp (true colour+overlays+tags) There is a custom chip called "Charity" which includes a blitter that can do comparisons as well as bit operations and has operations that know about colours. It has a 64 bit wide interface to the video RAM and can do four comparisons on 8 byte sized pixels in one memory cycle and write different bytes back out based on the results of the comparison. It can plot pixel aligned characters at 64 million pixels/sec and does 2D barrel shifting. This is the hottest blitter that I have ever heard of. Helios is also available to run with an IBM PC/B004 type of system. Structurally it is like AmigaDos in that it is multitasking with file handler tasks etc but it looks good and is written from scratch in C to be as unix like as possible. The Abaq is being launched at the Hannover Fair later this month so more details should be out soon. The basic price will be about 3000 pounds (without monitor) for performance below that of a SUN 4/110C (at 20K pounds+) for processing speed but faster for graphics. Atari (UK) is on (0753) 33344 Perihelion Software is on (0749) 4203 -- | 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...)
drs@bnl.ARPA (David R. Stampf) (03/18/88)
>If you write to Perihelion they should be able to send you the >Helios Developers Notes, this gives an overview and I posted >most of the info last November to comp.sys.transputer, comp.sys.atari.st >and comp.sys.amiga. > >Since then a group of friends has coughed up 50 pounds to become registered >developers and we are getting manuals sent to us and offers of beta release >hardware for porting applications. > >So far we have the Helios Developer's Manual which gives an overview >of the system structure, details of the C compiler, assembler and libraries. >Also the Helios Technical Manual which describes the message passing system, >kernel, nucleus, servers, file formats etc. > >We are waiting for the Helios User's manual (shell and X-windows) and the >hardware manual. > > >The Abaq is being launched at the Hannover Fair later this month >so more details should be out soon. The basic price will be about >3000 pounds (without monitor) for performance below that of >a SUN 4/110C (at 20K pounds+) for processing speed but faster for >graphics. > >Atari (UK) is on (0753) 33344 >Perihelion Software is on (0749) 4203 >-- > | 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...) I became a registered developer in December and so far have received a Helios Developer's Manual and a User's Manual. The Developer's manual was useful in describing an overview of the system, but it did point out some problems - most notably is that there is no way to do memory management on the machine and so it is basically a single user/single task machine. If you add more transputers, you can add more users, but then the individual users cannot multiprocess (i.e. >1 CPU). I say cannot meaning you would have to be crazy to expose your address space to another user/process. The people who describe helios as being Unix like are being quite kind to themselves. The unix compatability library has 16 (!) entry points - mostly to do with read/write/chdir and the like. Even MS-DOS is closer than this. Missing of course are fork, chown, execve, ioctl, kill, profil, ptrace, readv, select, sigsetmask, umask, wait etc. This is not unix and people should be aware of that. The users manual lists 78 commands. Sounds impressive, but... only 23 are implemented now! Most of those are the simple commands like rm, mv, date - commands that have a very simple interface to the O/S. Virtually none of the commands accept any options. Sounds like they have some work to do. The good news, is that they said that this can run on an IBM-PC, on the KMAX or on the ABAQ - so you need not run right out and buy a Mega - wait for the prices to drop. The bad news is that they want 500 pounds for this - and it doesn't include any of the sexy multiprocessor support yet! The bottom line is - who cares. < dave