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INMOS
Inmos International plc (trademark INMOS) and two operating subsidiaries, Inmos Limited (UK) and Inmos Corporation (US), was a British semiconductor company founded by Iann Barron, Richard Petritz, and Paul Schroeder in July 1978. Inmos Limited’s head office and design office were at Aztec West business park in Bristol, England. Products Inmos' first products were static RAM devices, followed by dynamic RAMs and EEPROMs. Despite early production difficulties, Inmos eventually captured around 60% of the world SRAM market. However, Barron's long-term aim was to produce an innovative microprocessor architecture intended for parallel processing, the ''transputer''. David May and Robert Milne were recruited to design this processor, which went into production in 1985 in the form of the T212 and T414 chips. The transputer achieved some success as the basis for several parallel supercomputers from companies such as Meiko (formed by ex-Inmos employees in 1985), Floating Poin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Transputer
The transputer is a series of pioneering microprocessors from the 1980s, intended for parallel computing. To support this, each transputer had its own integrated memory and serial communication links to exchange data with other transputers. They were designed and produced by Inmos, a semiconductor device, semiconductor company based in Bristol, United Kingdom. For some time in the late 1980s, many considered the transputer to be the next great design for the future of computing. While the transputer did not achieve this expectation, the transputer architecture was highly influential in provoking new ideas in computer architecture, several of which have re-emerged in different forms in modern systems. Background In the early 1980s, conventional central processing units (CPUs) appeared to have reached a performance limit. Up to that time, manufacturing difficulties limited the amount of circuitry that could fit on a chip. Continued improvements in the integrated circuit#Manu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Occam Programming Language
occam is a programming language which is concurrent and builds on the communicating sequential processes (CSP) process algebra, Inmos document 72 occ 45 03 and shares many of its features. It is named after philosopher William of Ockham after whom Occam's razor is named. Occam is an imperative procedural language (such as Pascal). It was developed by David May and others at Inmos (trademark INMOS), advised by Tony Hoare, as the native programming language for their transputer microprocessors, but implementations for other platforms are available. The most widely known version is occam 2; its programming manual was written by Steven Ericsson-Zenith and others at Inmos. Overview In the following examples indentation and formatting are critical for parsing the code: expressions are terminated by the end of the line, lists of expressions need to be on the same level of indentation. This feature, named the off-side rule, is also found in other languages such as Haskell and Pyth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Parsytec
Isra Vision Parsytec AG, a subsidiary of Isra Vision, was originally founded in 1985 as Parsytec (''parallel system technology'') in Aachen, Germany. Parsytec gained recognition in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a manufacturer of transputer-based parallel systems. Its product lineup ranged from single transputer plug-in boards for IBM PCs to large, massively parallel systems with thousands of transputers (or processors), such as the Parsytec GC. Some sources describe the latter as ultracomputer-sized, scalable multicomputers (smC). As part of ISRA VISION AG, the company now focuses on the machine vision and industrial image processing sectors. ISRA Parsytec products are primarily used for quality and surface inspection, particularly in the metal and paper industries. History Parsytec was founded in 1985 in Aachen, Germany, by Falk-Dietrich Kübler, Gerhard H. Peise, and Bernd Wolff, with an 800,000 DM grant from the Federal Ministry for Research and Technology (BMFT). [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Meiko Scientific
Meiko Scientific Ltd. was a British supercomputer company based in Bristol, founded by members of the design team working on the Inmos transputer microprocessor. History In 1985, when Inmos management suggested the release of the transputer be delayed, Miles Chesney, David Alden, Eric Barton, Roy Bottomley, James Cownie, and Gerry Talbot resigned and formed Meiko ( Japanese for "well-engineered") to start work on massively parallel machines based on the processor. Nine weeks later in July 1985, they demonstrated a transputer system based on experimental 16-bit transputers at the SIGGRAPH in San Francisco. In 1986, a system based on 32-bit T414 transputers was launched as the ''Meiko Computing Surface''. By 1990, Meiko had sold more than 300 systems and grown to 125 employees. In 1993, Meiko launched the second-generation ''Meiko CS-2'' system, but the company ran into financial difficulties in the mid-1990s. The technical team and technology was transferred to a joint venture co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
David May (computer Scientist)
Michael David May (born 24 February 1951) is a British computer scientist working primarily in the fields of computer architecture, parallel computing and robotics. He is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Bristol and founder of XMOS Semiconductor, serving until February 2014 as the chief technology officer. May is one of the few individuals who have led the design of a CPU architecture, an interconnect and a modern era programming language. In addition to his work on parallel-computing microprocessors, he is particularly well known for his work on memory management and compiler development. He was lead architect for the pioneering parallel microprocessr, the transputer. As of 2024, he holds 56 patents in areas including microprocessors, multi-processing and communication protocols. Early life and education May was born in Holmfirth, Yorkshire, England and attended Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Wakefield. From 1969 to 1972, he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
National Enterprise Board
The National Enterprise Board (NEB) was a United Kingdom government body. It was set up in 1975 by the Labour government of Harold Wilson, to support the government's interventionist approach to industry. In 1981 the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher, combined the NEB with the National Research Development Corporation (NRDC) to form the British Technology Group. Background The NEB was the brainchild of the economist Stuart Holland and the Shadow Secretary of State for Industry Tony Benn in the early-1970s. It was modelled on, and hoped to replicate the success of the Italian Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale (IRI), a public holding company, which was seen as having been a major component of the Italian economic miracle after World War II. In Holland's view, nationalisation had gained a bad name in Britain because only run down or declining industries had been nationalised, so public ownership became associated with failure; the IRI on the other hand was a p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
SGS-Thomson
STMicroelectronics NV (commonly referred to as ST or STMicro) is a European multinational semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company. It is the largest of such companies in Europe. It was founded in 1987 from the merger of two state-owned semiconductor corporations: ''Thomson Semiconducteurs'' of United States/France and ''SGS Microelettronica'' of Italy. The company is incorporated in the Netherlands and headquartered in Plan-les-Ouates, Switzerland. Its shares are traded on Euronext Paris, the Borsa Italiana and the New York Stock Exchange. History ST was formed in 1987 by the merger of two government-owned semiconductor companies: Italian SGS Microelettronica (where SGS stands for ''Società Generale Semiconduttori'', "General Semiconductor Company"), and French ''Thomson Semiconducteurs'', the semiconductor arm of Thomson. SGS Microelettronica originated in 1972 from a previous merger of two companies: * ATES (Aquila Tubi e Semiconduttori), a vacuum tube ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Atari Transputer Workstation
The Atari Transputer Workstation (also known as ATW-800, or simply ATW) is a workstation class computer released by Atari Corporation in the late 1980s, based on the INMOS Transputer. It was introduced in 1987 as the Abaq, but the name was changed before sales began. Sales were almost non-existent, and the product was canceled after only a few hundred units were made. History In 1986, Tim King left his job at MetaComCo, along with a few other employees, to start Perihelion Software in England. There they began developing a new parallel-processing operating system named ''HeliOS''. At about the same time a colleague, Jack Lang, started Perihelion (later Perihelion Hardware) to create a new Transputer-based workstation that would run HeliOS. While at MetaComCo, much of the Perihelion Software team had worked with both Atari Corp. and Commodore International, producing the programming language ST BASIC for the former, and AmigaDOS for the latter. The principals still had contacts ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Iann Barron
Iann Marchant Barron (16 June 1936 – 16 May 2022) was a British computer engineer and entrepreneur. Biography During vacation work in 1956–57 at Elliott Brothers while still at Cambridge he designed the Elliott 803. On leaving University he joined the Civil Service in 1958 as a Scientific Officer on special assignment first to the Army Operational Research Group, and in 1960 to the Air Ministry. He returned to the company now called Elliott Automation as a Project Leader for the Elliott 502 computer team, later becoming the company's Head of System Research. In 1965 Barron left Elliott Automation to become Founder and Managing Director of Computer Technology Limited, where the Modular One range of computer systems was developed. In the mid-1970s he formed a new company, Microcomputer Analysis Ltd, which offered consultancy on microprocessors to the semiconductor industry. This brought him into contact with two eminent American semiconductor specialists, Richard Pet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
G364 Framebuffer
The G364 framebuffer was a line of graphics adapters using the SGS Thomson INMOS G364 colour video controller, produced by INMOS (known for their transputer and eventually acquired by SGS Thomson and incorporated into STMicroelectronics) in the early 1990s. The G364 included a RAMDAC and a 64-bit interface to VRAM graphical memory to implement a framebuffer, but did not include any hardware-based graphical acceleration other than a hardware cursor function. The G364 was largely similar in design and functionality to the G300 framebuffer, but had a 64-bit VRAM interface instead of the slower 32-bit interface of the lower-price G300. The INMOS G364 is quite similar to the G332 found on the Personal DECstation and Dell PowerLine 450DE/2 DGX Graphics Workstation. Although the G364 was capable of providing comparatively high resolution output (up to 1600×1200 pixels at 8 bits-per-pixel, in many cases) typically achieved only in Unix workstations such as those of Sun Microsystems o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
IBM PS/2
The Personal System/2 or PS/2 is IBM's second generation of personal computers. Released in 1987, it officially replaced the IBM Personal Computer, IBM PC, IBM Personal Computer XT, XT, IBM Personal Computer/AT, AT, and IBM PC Convertible, PC Convertible in IBM's lineup. Many of the PS/2's innovations, such as the 16550 UART (serial port), 1440 KB 3.5-inch floppy disk format, 72-pin SIMMs, #Keyboard/mouse, PS/2 port, and #Graphics, VGA video standard, went on to become standards in the broader PC market. The PS/2 line was created by IBM partly in an attempt to recapture control of the PC market by introducing the advanced yet Vendor lock-in, proprietary Micro Channel architecture (MCA) on higher-end models. These models were in the strange position of being incompatible with the hardware standards previously established by IBM and adopted in the IBM PC compatible industry. Most major PC manufacturers balked at IBM's licensing terms for MCA-compatible hardware, particularly the pe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
RAMDAC
A Brooktree RAMDAC A RAMDAC (random-access memory digital-to-analog converter) is a combination of three fast digital-to-analog converters (DACs) with a small static random-access memory (SRAM) used in computer graphics display controllers or video cards to store the color palette and to generate the analog signals (usually a voltage amplitude) to drive a color monitor. The logical color number from the display memory is fed into the address inputs of the SRAM to select a palette entry to appear on the data output of the SRAM. This entry is composed of three separate values corresponding to the three components (red, green, and blue) of the desired physical color. Each component value is fed to a separate DAC, whose analog output goes to the monitor, and ultimately to one of its three electron guns (or equivalent in non- CRT displays). RAMDACs became obsolete as DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort and other digital interface technology became mainstream, which transfer video data digitally ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
