Transputer
A transputer is a parallel computer that is equipped with additional communication hardware to enable the efficient exchange of data with neighboring computers using message passing . The word is a suitcase word made up of “ transistor ” and “ computer ”. Corresponding devices have been developed since 1978 by Inmos , a company founded in England . In 1983 the transputer was officially presented. These are complete microcomputers based on the Von Neumann architecture .
Essential to the concept of the Transputer were its cluster capabilities and the attempts to parallelize the computing processes based on them. The new Occam programming language was developed for this purpose.
In this context, an (then) extremely fast connection technology was developed between the computing nodes. However, since the transputer links work according to the rendezvous method and have no FIFO , parallelization is difficult.
To achieve higher speeds, one must use a unidirectional stream. The communication channel must buffer the data of the sender in a FIFO so that the receiver can process the preliminary product asynchronously .
Applications
The transputers were used, for example, in the Atari Transputer Workstation ( Tim King ), the Meiko Computing Surface , the parallel computers from SANG and Parsytec or in the Amiga Transputer Workstation. A developer board was produced at the TUHH . In industry, transputers found a relatively large application in the field of regulation and control technology . But not only there:
The Technical University of Munich built a workstation with 137 transputers to solve problems in mathematical optimization .
A workstation for medical image processing was developed at the University of Siegen . The S2M-T1 card from AVM could optionally use an additional card with a T800 transputer housed in an external 1U high 19 ″ housing for real-time data compression on up to 30 ISDN channels . Transputers are also used in space travel: The SOHO space probe sends images with the help of a transputer network. In the EUREKA Prometheus project , transputers were used in the autonomous robot vehicle VaMoRs by Ernst Dickmanns to automatically steer a vehicle through traffic on the basis of purely visual data.
In 1989 SGS-Thomson bought the Inmos company, as a result, further development of the transputer was discontinued in the mid-1990s and production of the transputer was discontinued at the end of the 1990s. The architecture of the transputer partially survived in the microprocessor family ST20 .
Transputer card for the PC
INMOS evaluation board B004
INMOS T800
Block diagram T800
Example configuration
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Iann M. Barron: The Microprocessor and its Application: an Advanced Course . In: D. Aspinall (Ed.): The Transputer . Cambridge University Press , 1978, ISBN 0-521-22241-9 , p. 343 (Retrieved June 25, 2014).
- ↑ Transputer project ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. of the Technical University of Munich (accessed December 7, 2009)
- ^ History of Inmos and Transputer on inmos.com (accessed December 7, 2009)
