The Inmos Transputer And Occam

EE 50 November 1987 THE INMOS TRANSPUTER AND OCCAM A brief introduction to the higher programming language tailored to supporting the transputer"s concepts of concurrency and parallel processing. Traditionally a computer is set up according to John von Neumannn"s model: a central processor fetches instructions from a memory, and manipulates data accordingly. Whatever its speed and internal architecture, the processor can only handle a single instruction at a time. This is even true in multi-user and multi-tasking systems such as UNIX and con- current MS-DOS, where the pro- cessor is apparently engaged in several tasks at a time, but in reality assigns time slots to por- tions of the relevant task(s). Ob- viously, the faster the pro- cessor, the less users are aware of the time sharing process. The transputer is a radical departure from the von Neumannn concept. Trans- puters are optimized for true concurrency. Parallel pro- cessing of data and instructions is achieved by synchroni...