Newsgroups: comp.sys.transputer
From: Mark Sandford <msandford@delphi.com>
Subject: Re: Just An Observation
Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice)
Date: Wed, 28 DEC 94 20:06:33 -0500
Message-ID: <xS67QGB.msandford@delphi.com>

A few companies have embraced the Transputer but they are indeed few and far
between.  The biggest problem that I can see is that the concept of parallel
processing has never really sunk in.  People find it too easy to programm
sequential applications because it is easier and portable to other sequential
machines.  A number of parallel systems have come out but the way in
which parallelism is produced changes with every machine.  For the majority
of users a single processor is more than enough to deal with and even for
the advanced user scalability over a wide range of applications is difficult
to justify.  For specific applications where speed and capabilities are
required such that there is no option to go parallel it has done very well.
Unfortunately the military is one of the few areas in which the money is
available for such dedicated machine.  As other posters have also mentioned
the series of processors has not increased in speed or reduced in price by
T414 was introduced in
arround 1986, about the same time as the 80386.  The T414 was ruuning at
20 Mhz compared to the 16Mhz 386 and was something like twice as fast
on real world appliactions.  In the late eighties an FPU was added that
is better than the old 387.  It was competetive at that point but has made
almost no change since that point, while intel produced the 486 and pentium
and clock speeds have reached 100 Mhz.  Inmos is selling 80's products
although nice products in an 90's market place.  A beleive that the 425
32 bit RISC processors
availiable for $30 or less.  In Transtechs literature for their i860
TRAMs the T805 is dicribed as a communiactions processor.  The processor
is a very nice product and don't get me wrong I do like it, but
it is not cheaper or faster and like it or not thier are two things
that matter in the computer industry cheaper and faster.
 
Just my $.02.....

