INMOS B008 Transputer Evaluation Board Rev E

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This INMOS B008 PC Board was designed to plug into a standard IBM-compatible PC and allow it to control up to ten Transputer Modules ("TRAMs"). While different motherboards were developed for different host systems, the TRAMs were universal modules, each hosting a Transputer processor and up to four megabytes of RAM. Multiple B008 cards could be installed in a single PC, each chained together and controlled by a single 'master' board. Each TRAM could also act as a master controller for a separate subsystem of Transputer modules. All Transputer processors require a standard 5MHz external clock - high-frequency clocks are internally derived from this. The B008 Transputer processors internally run at 20MHz.

The motherboard contained an IMST212A processor and an IMSC004B processor to handle communications between the TRAMs and the PC interface.

The IMST212A is a 16-bit processor containing 2KB on-chip RAM; up to 64KB external RAM is supported. It incorporates a pre-emptive microcoded scheduler, enabling any number of concurrent processes to be executed without a software kernel. Two hardware timers are available with 1-microsecond and 64-microsecond precision, respectively. Four identical bi-directional serial links are the 212's interface to the outside world. Each link has input and output channels, with TTL compatible signals at a standard 10Mbit/sec.

The IMS C004 is a transparent programmable link switch designed to provide a full crossbar switch between 32 link inputs and 32 link outputs. The IMS C004 will switch links running at either the standard speed of 10 Mbits/sec or at the higher speed of 20 Mbit/sec. It introduces, on average, only a 1.75 bit time delay on the signal.

This B008 motherboard is fully populated with four double-width TRAMs and two single-width. The TRAMs are:

  • Four IMSB404 modules with IMST800 processors and 2MB RAM. 4KB is internal to the Transputer (1 cycle access time), 32KB is SRAM (3 cycles), and the remainder is DRAM (4-5 cycles).
  • Two unknown single-with modules with IMST424A processors, possibly 1MB RAM.

Manufacturer: INMOS
Date: 1987



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INMOS B008 Transputer Evaluation Board Rev E Manuals:

Item Manufacturer Date
Modular One User Manual CTL 1969
IMS B004 Evaluation Board User Manual INMOS 1985
INMOS Technical Note 13: Transputer networks using the IMS B003 INMOS Feb 1987
INMOS Technical Note 11: IMS B004 IBM PC add-in board INMOS Feb 1987
INMOS Technical Note 10: IMS B003 Design of a multi-transputer board INMOS Feb 1987
INMOS Technical Note 2: The transputer based Navigation System - an example of testing embedded systems INMOS Feb 1987
INMOS Technical Note 1: Extraordinary use of transputer links INMOS Feb 1987
INMOS Technical Note 14: IMS B006; a single board computer using 9 IMS T212 transputers INMOS Feb 1987
INMOS Technical Note 16: Occam program development using the IMS D700C transputer development system INMOS Sep 1987
INMOS Technical Note 7: Exploiting concurrency: a ray tracing example INMOS Oct 1987
INMOS Technical Note 3: Getting started with the TDS INMOS Oct 1987
INMOS Technical Note 29: Dual Inline Transputer Modules (TRAMS) INMOS 10 Dec 1987
INMOS B008 User Guide and Reference Manual INMOS Jun 1988

Magazines RELATED to INMOS B008 Transputer Evaluation Board Rev E in our Library

Item Manufacturer Date
Byte February 1988 Unknown
Your Computer - June 1987 Jun 1987
Personal Computer World - February 1988 1 Feb 1988
Byte November 1988 Nov 1988
Personal Computer World - November 1989 1 Nov 1989
Byte June 1988 Jun 1998

This exhibit has a reference ID of CH36061. Please quote this reference ID in any communication with the Centre for Computing History.

 

INMOS B008 Transputer Evaluation Board Rev E

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