Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!super!udel!gatech!uflorida!haven!uvaarpa!babbage!mac3n
From: mac3n@babbage.acc.virginia.edu (Alex Colvin)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Transputer based systems.
Keywords: transputer, communication, not-unix
Message-ID: <358@babbage.acc.virginia.edu>
Date: 27 Sep 88 13:36:50 GMT
References: <253@uceng.UC.EDU> <40211@linus.UUCP>
Sender: uucp@super.ORG
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Organization: University of Virginia
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In article <40211@linus.UUCP>, bs@linus.UUCP (Robert D. Silverman) writes:
> We have just been though a major decision process where we chose a parallel
> computer. We discarded the transputer for several reasons:
> 
> (1) SLOW communication, relative to the IPSC/2 and AMETEK


I'm surprised at this.  I thought communication was one of the transputer
strengths.  My understanding was that the effective rate is 10Mb/s, with
only a few usec latency for small messages.

How are transputers where the topology and application are fixed, messages
are short, and the critical factor is end-to-end delay?  What are the
limits on link distance, and is there some kind of repeater (besides
another transputer)?