🚀 go-pugleaf

If Niche is out of the running for a while, that's a shame.
Does anyone else make a single VME board that can a large number of
transputers? 8 (for 6u VME form factor) or 32 (for 9u SunVME form factor) 

From the information I have, Topoligix doesn't seem to, neither does Meiko.
Is there a board that will accept the 'standard' Inmos modules, so that
we can upgrade via the supplier with the best price, or move modules 
between PC bus and NuBUS as needed?

Thanks.
-- 
					- Ralph W. Hyre, Jr.
Internet: ralphw@ius3.cs.cmu.edu    Phone:(412) CMU-BUGS
Amateur Packet Radio: N3FGW@W2XO, or c/o W3VC, CMU Radio Club, Pittsburgh, PA
"You can do what you want with my computer, but leave me alone!8-)"
-- 

	Computer Systems Architects is working on, and I believe has, a 
proto-type of a VME board which will support 4 transputers and a 
crossbar switch.  The board is supposed to have buffers for each of 
the transputers and separately mappable registers for each of the 
transputers so you could do DMA to each of the transputers on 
the board.  Also I believe that they intend to provide interrupts
on the VME bus for i/o. Sounds like it'll beat the pants off our 
B011.

	Our contact with C.S.A. is:
			Glen Lowery 
			(801)374-2300
			Provo Utah, U.S.A.
			csa@adam.byu.edu	

P.S.  We have several of their P.C. boards hanging off our B011 in our 
	sun and are very pleased with the performance and price of their boards.

===============================================================================

			Paul Smith
			Internet: 	paul@amos.ling.ucsd.edu
			UUCP:		...ucbvax!sdcsvax!amos!paul
			Bitnet:		pssmith@ucsd.bitnet

In article <5622@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU>, paul@amos.ling.ucsd.edu (Paul Smith) writes:
> 	Computer Systems Architects is working on, and I believe has, a 
> proto-type of a VME board which will support 4 transputers and a 
> crossbar switch.
> 	Our contact with C.S.A. is:
> 			Glen Lowery 
> 			(801)374-2300
> 			Provo Utah, U.S.A.
> 			csa@adam.byu.edu	

We have been looking into the CSA boards and VME board for SUNs.
I talked to CSA on friday for about an hour and it seems that
their SUN VME board is in the final stages of development and
will be ready for delivery in early january.  I thought that
they were simply providing a VME board (with 1 transputer, probably
a T212 or T222).  No crossbar switch etc was mentioned. (Topologix
sells boards like that).

I was scheduled to go down to CSA on friday to take a look at their
operation, but I got a call at 7:00am saying that our contact,
who I believe was Glen Lowery, was no longer with the company.
You'd better call and find out for yourself.

David A. J. Jevans
Jade Simulations International
#80, 1833 Crowchild Trail N.W.
Calgary, Alberta
Canada
T2M 4S7

David Jevans, U of Calgary Computer Science, Calgary AB  T2N 1N4  Canada
uucp: ...{ubc-cs,utai,alberta}!calgary!jevans

jevans@.ucalgary.ca (David Jevans) writes:
> I talked to CSA on friday for about an hour and it seems that
> ........
> they were simply providing a VME board (with 1 transputer, probably
> a T212 or T222).  No crossbar switch etc was mentioned. (Topologix
> sells boards like that).


	It was my understanding, that the CSA board was actually going to 
provide 4 links on the VME bus for 4 anythings, probably transputers.  Also
they were to provide a 5th link which could accommodate a crossbar switch.
Their board itself doesn't come with any transputers, just the link adapters
and buffers for them.  You could independently talk to the crossbar switch 
from the VME bus, which would allow you to reconfigure your transputer network.
On each of the links you could hang either 1 transputer or a network of 
transputers.

	In my original posting I forgot to mention that PARSYTEC also 
advertises VME boards.  I don't know much about them but I have tons of 
their literature.  In the United States they are represented by:

				CNC Marketing
				(312) 879-7003
				(I've talked with Randy Cochran, about 6-12 months ago).


==============================================================================

				Paul Smith
				Internet: 	paul@amos.ling.ucsd.edu
				UUCP:		...ucbvax!sdcsvax!amos!paul
				Bitnet:		pssmith@ucsd.bitnet

[]

If what you want is transputers hooked onto a Unix system, then
an alternative to VME is the Apollo 3x00 series workstations.
They have IBM-PC compatible slots.  Since it would be Unix rather
than MS-DOS, one would need to write a Unix device driver to support
I/O to/from the board(s) in the multi-tasking environment.
(If anybody has done that for the Apollo I'd like to hear about it!)
In that context it would help a lot if the transputer board would
support interrupts and DMA.  As far as I know, Microway and Definicon
do not, but the CSA boards do.  The Inmos B008 does, but the B004
does not.  I'm not sure about Parsytec.  Any others?

- Moshe Braner

PS: I do hope Niche is revived!