PROTEK TRANSPUTER BOARD BOOSTS HEWLETT PACKARD WORKSTATIONS

Hardware and software designed for use with Hewlett-Packard systems has been introduced by London-based Protek Ltd. Used together, the Transputer module motherboard and TTS-1 Transputer toolset enable the development of Inmos Transputer networks supported by Hewlett-Packard series 200 or 300 workstations under HP-UX. The Transputer module motherboard comes in two versions to take four or 12 standard Transputer modules. It can then be used for a variety of Transputer applications including prototyping, target system support and Occam program development. The motherboard occupies one input-output backplane slot and the Transputer link connections can be configured into any topology. Ten links are brought to an external expansion connection so that larger networks using multiple boards in a daisy chain can be constructed. An interface for the systems is supplied, enabling data to be transferred to and from the Transputer network, and the network to be controlled and monitored. The TTS-1 Transputer toolset is a software development environment for use with the motherboard, and can target mixed networks of Transputers. It has an Occam 2 compiler, linker, syntax checker, configurer, librarian, symbolic, network debugger, makefile generator utility, bootstrap tool, HP-UX file server and device driver. A server process running under HP-UX is responsible for mediating communication between the Transputers and the operating system environment. Program files are prepared and stored with conventional HP-UX functions, and user commands are available for initiating compilation of Occam 2 program modules, link loading of separately compiled modules and use of the symbolic network debugger – which all run in native mode on the Transputers installed on the motherboard. Also included is run-time access to HP-UX system services from within an Occam program executing on the Transputers. The four-slot motherboard and toolset bundled together costs UKP2,150, the 12 slot version is UKP2,400.