Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!usc!ucsd!ucbvax!v1.physics.oxford.ac.uk!HALLAM
From: HALLAM@v1.physics.oxford.ac.uk ("Phillip M. Hallam-Baker")
Newsgroups: comp.sys.transputer
Subject: (none)
Message-ID: <16344.9009201349@prg.oxford.ac.uk>
Date: 20 Sep 90 15:32:54 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 41
X-Unparsable-Date: Thu, 20 Sep 90 14:49 +01:00

>From:	OXVS5::HALLAM       "Phillip M. Hallam-Baker" 20-SEP-1990 14:07:24.36
To:	CBS%COM.APPLE::MOTCSD::ENGADM2::MOTCSD.CSD.MOT.COM::CLIFF
CC:	hallam

Subj:	RE: I have a multi-cpu question

>	This is my first post in this newsgroup, so I'm sorry if it may
>by a redundant question.  I would like to develope some software on a mac
>with a transputer.  The idea is to do some multi-threaded programming
>routines.  When I get it all working I am going to transfer it to my
>production box.  This will be something fairly cheap, like an 386 or
>something.  The question(s) are these:

????????

Yes I have done a lot of multithreaded code, working on a VAX, Starting on a 
transputer and then collapsing the nice clean parallel code to multithreaded 
mush is probably the easiest route to multithreaded.... But do you REALY want 
multithreaded, CSP is much easier to use. Do you have to use a 386 ? after all a 
TRAM card with a megabyte of RAM costs around $500, with an onboard FPU. I can't 
imagine a 386 system being any cheaper..

>	The other thing is that I will be doing some image processing.  This 
>	implies that floating point work needs to be done.  Only the intel
>	486 has it built in.  I believe that an off chip fpu would be 
>	difficult to use for multiple processors.  The point is, would it
>	be better to use processors that have it built in like the moto 88k?
>	If thats the case, are these kind of boards available?  What will my
>	host system have to be? i.e. 680xx?

Again why not a T800 ? The Intel chip is basicaly a bodge designed to allow 
people to make fast IBM pc's which will run a choice of three crummy operating 
systems equally badly. If you want to play around with parallelism, a T800 
network is probably the best option. If you need serious computing power then 
take a look at the i860, with some communications chip (a Tputer even!).

Unless you have a *REALY* huge problem I can't see building your own hardware as 
a soultion. Even if you get the labour free, by the time you are finished you 
will almost certainly be able to buy the stuff off the shelf cheaper.

		Phillip M Hallam-Baker