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12.
07.
2013
Transputer Architecture and Occam - the Fascination of early, true Parallel Computing Anno 1983
Uwe Mielke
Infineon
The Transputer and its Programming Language Occam have been
developed by INMOS together with the University of Oxford from 1980 onwards
as European Solution to overcome all the obvious disadvantages of the
sequential programmed, rapidly growing U.S. dominated micro computing
landscape. Hoare's theory of "Communicating sequential Processes" provided a
stable framework for Occam and the Transputer Architecture, which
immediately allowed full scalable parallel computing and was far ahead of
its time. Quite fast the TRAMs (Transputer Standard Modules) have found
their way especially into the embedded control market (robotics), scientific
applications (FFT) and high parallel super computing, where common
microprocessors quickly bounced on their limits. But finally "Moore's Law"
was the winner in history and the Transputer, missing its Redesign,
disappeared silently from the market until the year 2000. Nevertheless the
idea of the Transputer and its ease of parallel use by serial Links,
influenced generations of electronic and computer engineers as well software
and IP designs. The principles of CSP are still alive in today's "Blue Gene"
as MPI, and Transputer Link hardware survived as IEEE-1355 into Spacewire,
Firewire and more. This lecture will give - beside history - a brief
introduction about easy parallel programming with Occam ... and how the
Occam process model was directly implemented into the Transputer's
Microcode.
Slides: PDF
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