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I don't think I'd call the transputer "hardware multitasking" so much as "integrated communications network." For a time the T800 was the top of the FP pile.

I don't think I'd call the transputer "hardware multitasking" so much as "integrated communications network." For a time the T800 was the top of the FP pile. Not for long, though, and then the long, long, long wait for the disappointing T9k doomed the whole architecture.

mpweiher 8y ago
>I don't think I'd call the transputer "hardware multitasking" "A Transputer had a number of simple operating system functions built into the hardware. These included hardware multitasking with foreground and background priority levels, hardware timers, and hardware time-slicing of background tasks." The Hardware and Software Architecture of the Transputer -- https://archive.org/details/Xputer https://archive.org/details/Xputer There are special instruction to start and end a process, and the fact that it was a stack machine means context switches were extremely fast, almost no registers to save/restore. > so much as "integrated communications network." It had both, and both were integrated. IIRC, the instructions to send/receive on the links were integrated with the multitasking hardware. "The first 16 'secondary' zero-operand instructions (using the OPR primary instruction) were: Mnemonic Description REV Reverse – swap two top items of register stack LB Load byte BSUB Byte subscript ENDP End process DIFF Difference ADD Add GCALL General Call – swap top of stack and instruction pointer IN Input – receive message PROD Product GT Greater Than – the only comparison instruction WSUB Word subscript OUT Output – send message SUB Subtract STARTP Start process OUTBYTE Output byte – send one-byte message OUTWORD Output word – send one-word message" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transputer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transputer Also, you could designate memory locations as local communications channels, and the same instructions would work. So the same binary could run locally or distributed.
- foobiekr 8y ago
  This manual is a great find! Thank you.

mpweiher 8y ago

>I don't think I'd call the transputer "hardware multitasking" "A Transputer had a number of simple operating system functions built into the hardware. These included hardware multitasking with foreground and background priority levels, hardware timers, and hardware time-slicing of background tasks." The Hardware and Software Architecture of the Transputer -- https://archive.org/details/Xputer https://archive.org/details/Xputer There are special instruction to start and end a process, and the fact that it was a stack machine means context switches were extremely fast, almost no registers to save/restore. > so much as "integrated communications network." It had both, and both were integrated. IIRC, the instructions to send/receive on the links were integrated with the multitasking hardware. "The first 16 'secondary' zero-operand instructions (using the OPR primary instruction) were: Mnemonic Description REV Reverse – swap two top items of register stack LB Load byte BSUB Byte subscript ENDP End process DIFF Difference ADD Add GCALL General Call – swap top of stack and instruction pointer IN Input – receive message PROD Product GT Greater Than – the only comparison instruction WSUB Word subscript OUT Output – send message SUB Subtract STARTP Start process OUTBYTE Output byte – send one-byte message OUTWORD Output word – send one-word message" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transputer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transputer Also, you could designate memory locations as local communications channels, and the same instructions would work. So the same binary could run locally or distributed.

foobiekr 8y ago
This manual is a great find! Thank you.