transputer internals (was Re: Pentium for Non-PC)

[Tony Duell]

> > Which makes me wonder what would happen if you fed it an extended instruction
> > that it didn't know how to deal with.
> 
> I don't know, but finding out is one of the first things on my list of 
> things to do once I build some boards to plug mine into and find or make a 
> transputer link interface (anyone got a C012 they wouldn't mind selling?). 

Are ISA transputer boards (B004, etc) that hard to find now? 

Some of the first Inmos transputer boards, like the ones in my ITEM, have 
external ROMs on the transputer bus along with a serial chip. You don't 
need a link adapter in the host, just an RS232 port. Of course the 4 
transputer links are brought off-board to hang other transputers off.

> My wild-ass guess is they halt and wait for you to assert the reset or 

Assert Error? 

> analyze pins. What I really want to do is write a bug-compatible emulator 
> for them, so people could play with transputers without having to spend 
> hundreds of dollars and hours :-)

Considering it took me a morning to go from 'open the Transputer 
Databook' to 'Having a handwired bootable machine', I think 'hundreds of 
hours is a little pesimistic. And are they really that hard to find or 
expenssive that you have to spend hundreds of dollars to get one?

-tony