Test and evaluation of the transputer in a multi-transputer system

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to start the evaluation of the Transputer, a 32 bit microprocessor on a chip, to verify its potential and limitations for real time applications, in distributed systems. The evaluation concentrates on the four physical communication links, and its advertised capability to operate in parallel with the main processor (CPU), each one of them at a rate of 10 mbit/sec in each direction. It also presents to the reader an introduction to the machine itself, to the Occam Programming Language, a description of the environment at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS), and suggests to the novice a learning sequence. The evaluation programs and other example programs presented in this thesis were implemented using the Occam Programming Language (Proto-Ocam) in either the Occam Programming System (OPS) or the Transputer Development System (TDS), both resident on the VAX 11/780 computer under the VMS Operating System (VAX/VMS).