Newsgroups: comp.sys.transputer From: NewsMan <2021@please.dont.send.email> Subject: Re: Post Mortem Date: Sun, 22 Feb 1998 23:19:13 +0000 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Message-ID: David Boreham wrote >Magnus Paterson wrote: > >> This in from someone who used to try selling the beasts (Pete Highton >> formerly at Rapid/MMd) >> >> Re: - transputer - if Inmos had done what ARM have subsequently done, >> i.e. license the core, the story would have been oh so different. >> Someone should have marketed the part much harder in the U.S. and >> Japan, and really promoted it as an integrated core (as the ST20 >> finally became). Parallel processing is fine, but how many >> applications (mainstream) even today really use more than a >> handful of processors? Enough of the soapbox! > >Interesting point, but would never have happened because >Inmos was a semiconductor company. The whole raison d'être >was to fill the fab with lots. License the technology to someone else ? >Only if you can't supply the market with your factory. Not so sure about this one. From what I remember of the IBM PC design the designers chose the 8086 because it was available in quantity and from multiple suppliers. The other possibilities were the Z8000 and the Motorola chip. The Motorola was better but not so widely available. The rest, as they say, is history. NewsMan