transputer implementations

[Richard Goldsmith : MERLIN]

In response to :-

> From:    wallen%ics at ucsd.edu (Mark Wallen)
>
> Could someone give me a pointer to transputer (the RISC processor from
> Inmos) implementations for the Sun, specifically a Sun4?  ... etc

I saw a product exhibited at "COMPEC" exhibition in London Dec.87 by Niche
Data Systems Inc in Houston (713-751-0055) and their U.K. operation -
Niche Technology Ltd. Bristol , England +44 (0)272 298034.

Manufacture may be in UK because of Inmos being here, but they launched
the modular Transputer based "Advanced Computing Platform" (NT1000) just
over a year ago for Sun/3 and Sun/4 chassis systems programmable directly
in Fortran. It is a board which can take from one to 32 transputer/memory
modules of the T4 or T8 variety and sits on the sun backplane using the
full Sun environment - NFS, NeWS/X.11 SunView + Unix. Entry price around
13000 pounds Sterling. for enough power to get excited about (6 MFLOPS
ish) with 4 transputer modules with 8 Mb mem each. With 8 NT1000's fully
populated that goes up to 384 MFLOPS.

I do not know if they thrived/survived or what! as we have not been in the
market for purchasing such goodies, but I thought it worth posting this in
case I have got Mark Wallen's addressing wrong and for general interest.

Richard Goldsmith	M_GEMEW1::RICKG on SINet (Schlumberger)
Merlin Geophysical Ltd.
Woking, England