Transputer
About the Transputer PCB
Transputer is an open source PCB design by nanochess, published on GitHub under the BSD-3-Clause license. It is a board, with 25 components from 16 distinct parts.
Other key parts include the 74LS245, 74LS08, 74LS138, 74LS02 and 74F04. By type, the board carries 11 ICs, 6 capacitors, 6 resistors, 1 crystal and 1 connector.
From the project
Transputer T805 emulator, assembler, Pascal compiler, operating system, and K&R C compiler.
Once upon a time when I was a teen (1993), I wrote an almost full Pascal compiler for a transputer processor (the FILE type wasn't never completed)
It was the convergence of several things I had been learning that year: Pascal (The BYTE Book of Pascal), code generation (Compilers: Principles, Techniques and Tools), and transputer programming.
It was a time when the INMOS transputer promised parallel computing for everyone, but it was too expensive. They did a few good things, like a very fast 32-bit T805 transputer with 64-bit floating-point before the Intel 486DX2 was a thing.
Main components on the Transputer
Transputer bill of materials (BOM)
25 components, 16 distinct parts.
| Qty | Part | Footprint | Refs |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 74LS245 | DIP-20_W7.62mm | U1 |
| 1 | 74LS08 | DIP-14_W7.62mm | U2 |
| 1 | 74LS138 | DIP-16_W7.62mm | U3 |
| 1 | 74LS02 | DIP-14_W7.62mm | U4 |
| 1 | 74F04 | DIP-14_W7.62mm | U5 |
| 1 | 74LS367 | U6 | |
| 2 | 74LS74 | DIP-14_W7.62mm | U7, U9 |
| 1 | TRAM | TRAM | U8 |
| 1 | 74F244 | DIP-20_W7.62mm | U10 |
| 1 | IMSC011 | DIP-28_W15.24mm | U11 |
| 1 | 10 mhz. | Crystal_HC49-U_Vertical | Y1 |
| 1 | Bus_ISA_8bit | Conn_Edge_PCB_ISA8 | J1 |
| 5 | 0.1uF | C_Disc_D4.3mm_W1.9mm_P5.00mm | C1, C2, C3, C4, C5 |
| 1 | 10uf/50V | CP_Radial_Tantal_D4.5mm_P2.50mm | C6 |
| 2 | 1K | R_Axial_DIN0207_L6.3mm_D2.5mm_P7.62mm_Horizontal | R1, R2 |
| 4 | 10K | R_Axial_DIN0207_L6.3mm_D2.5mm_P7.62mm_Horizontal | R3, R4, R5, R6 |
Transputer design files
The KiCad project lives in the nanochess/transputer repository on GitHub; these links point at the commit this page was built from.
- Schematicpcb/transputer.kicad_sch
Transputer: common questions
How many components are on the Transputer?
25 components, from 16 distinct parts. The full bill of materials is listed on this page.
Where can I download the Transputer design files?
From the nanochess/transputer repository on GitHub, which has the schematic; the links under Design files point to each one.
Can I use the Transputer design in my own project?
Yes, under the terms of its BSD-3-Clause license, which nanochess chose for the repository.