
Transputer - walkingolof
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transputer
======
UncleSlacky
I took a course in Occam at university, though we weren't allowed to program
the Transputers themselves. Occam had the nice property of being able to
produce code that could be proven mathematically correct. We _were_ allowed to
see the output from a Meiko Computing Surface (with something like 64
Transputers) generating fractal zooms in real time (circa 1990).

Several years later I discovered a Transputer (in its storage case) abandoned
in the drawer of the desk I was assigned in my first "real" job, so I kept it
as a souvenir.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam_(programming_language)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam_\(programming_language\))
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiko_Scientific](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiko_Scientific)

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curtis
I learned about the Transputer from Byte Magazine, probably by reading one of
Dick Pountain's articles. I thought it was interesting enough that I wrote
Inmos to see if I could get some free documentation. I think I must have
filled out a standard form, because I remember that they wanted to know what
kind of professional role I had. I just wrote "student" and they sent me a
bunch of stuff anyway, but the paperwork that came back said I was a
"consultant", which I found rather amusing.

Alas, Transputers were on the way out at that point (probably they were never
on the way in), so I never got to actually work with one.

They still seem pretty cool, but in a decidedly retro way now.

~~~
sitkack
Funny. I did the same thing, in high school I wrote to ST Microelectronics who
had purchased Inmos about transputer documentation. They sent me a small
refrigerator sized box of manuals.

The onboard scheduler and instruction set format was amazing.

~~~
earenndil
How long ago was this? Do you suppose they would still have such things if I
asked them now?

~~~
sitkack
I doubt it, but you could try. Nearly all of them are available on

[https://archive.org/search.php?query=subject%3A%22transputer...](https://archive.org/search.php?query=subject%3A%22transputer%22)

and

[http://www.textfiles.com/bitsavers/pdf/inmos/transputer/](http://www.textfiles.com/bitsavers/pdf/inmos/transputer/)

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swolchok
If you're interested in this,
[http://www.zachtronics.com/tis-100/](http://www.zachtronics.com/tis-100/) is
a "game" about programming a non-existent architecture that looks inspired by
transputers.

~~~
krallja
TIS-100 has been on my brain for over 2 years now. Almost as addicting as
Kerbal Space Program.

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jensgk
As a student (around 1990) at DTU (Denmark) a friend and I did a project on
trying different methods of mapping backpropagation neural network
algorithms/architectures to a computer with 16 T-800's using the Occam
language with its (in)famous folding editor. Those were the days :-)

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bpye
I have attended lectures by David May and he spoke a couple of times about the
Transputer. He has some resources on his current web page.

[https://www.cs.bris.ac.uk/~dave/](https://www.cs.bris.ac.uk/~dave/)

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protomyth
I so wanted to program one, but never got my hands on the Atari or the PC card
with the T-400 on it. I bought the Occam book (which is I still have), and
found it to be a very interesting language (I always got the impressions on
hooking Legos together). I will say that it did influence my thinking on how
to design programs.

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curtis
After re-reading the history of the Transputer, I wonder if instead of going
all in on the T9000, maybe Inmos should have been simply trying to cram
multiple T800 cores onto a single chip. I guess it likely wouldn't have made
much difference.

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sitkack
The transputer still lives in on Xmos (started by David May),
[http://www.xmos.com/products/silicon/xcore-200](http://www.xmos.com/products/silicon/xcore-200)

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linker3000
Our visual systems (flight simulators) lab had a small card cage from Meiko.
It held a number of Transputer boards and was used for graphics/rendering
algorithm development. I remember a flurry of activity to learn Occam, but
interest waned as Transputer development fizzled out. I was an apprentice at
the time and didn't get to play with the Meiko box. Other dev work was done on
PCs, a VAX 11/750 and a MicroVAX - and I got to play with all those!

