Newsgroups: comp.sys.transputer
From: altatech@xmission.com (Alta Technology)
Subject: Re: LOOKING FOR DISTRIBUTORS...
Organization: XMission Public Access Internet (801-539-0900)
Date: 27 Sep 1994 07:37:35 -0600
Message-ID: <36976v$5qh@xmission.xmission.com>

Paul Walker (paul@walker.demon.co.uk) wrote:
: If I may be permitted a mini-plug of my own:

: A problem with most existing transputer host interface boards is that they
: are designed for a single process running on the host, with a single
: channel in each direction. I am trying to design a board to provide
: a virtual channel interface, to provide many channels as if the PC or
: host computer was itself a transputer. Combined with a master mode DMA
: interface to the bus (again like the Link Engine inside a transputer), I
: hope this will give reasonable performance. 

Altatech provides 2 ISA and 1 EISA tram holder board designs; each with four
links to the host; making the host work just like a tram.  We've been supplying this
design for many years, with both hard links and virtual channels.  In the presence
of a multitasking OS, this allows throughput rates of 1.5MBytes/Sec/link.  The EISA
version provides bus-mastering; freeing the host to perform other tasks
while the board provides the link I/O between trams and host memory.

And, we have an SBus based interface with the same 4-links-to-the-host design. 
This design achieves 6MBytes/Sec throughput (w/ 4 links running) on a SPARC II.



