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learned that the "Abaq" name was in use in Europe, so the product name was changed to ATW800. Perihelion remained the exclusive distributor in
England. A first run of prototypes was released in May 1988, followed by a production run in May 1989. In total, only 350 machines were produced (depending on the source either 50 or 100 of the total were prototypes).
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on the transputer, although a number of measures are employed to reduce the possibility of programs interfering with each other. For example, when invoking a command pipeline, each program is distributed to its own separate processor, communicating with other programs using pipes that are implemented
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All of these are connected using the
Transputer's 20 Mbit/s processor links. The motherboard contains four slots for additional "farm cards" containing four transputers each, meaning that a fully expanded ATW contains 17 transputers. Each runs at 20 MHz (the -20 in the name) which supplied
225:
with the name Abaq. Two versions were shown at the time; one was a card that connected to the Mega ST bus expansion slot, the second version was a stand-alone tower system containing a miniaturized Mega ST inside. The external card version was dropped at some point during development. It was later
401:(GUI). In addition HeliOS runs on all of the transputers in a farm concurrently, which allows all computing tasks to be fully distributed. Powering off an ATW does not affect the overall farm, and the tasks simply move to other processors on other systems.
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each. The bus is available externally, allowing several ATWs to be connected into one large farm. The motherboard includes a separate slot for one of the INMOS crossbar switches to improve inter-chip networking performance.
634:...a radical computing engine based on the Inmos T- 800 RISC processor. According to Atari president Sam Tramiel, the transputer- based Abaq requires a 4-mega- byte Atari Mega workstation front end to handle I/O...
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for the latter. The principals still had contacts with both companies. Commodore had expressed some interest in their new system, and showed demos of it on an add-on card running inside an
754:– It emulates a single T414 transputer (with no FPU, no blitting instructions) and supplies the file and terminal I/O services that were usually supplied by the host computer system.
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by hardware links. Where many programs may be deployed on the same processor, these processors will not in general be shared by programs belonging to different users.
199:". 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.
264:
218:. It appears they later lost interest in it. Atari Corp. met with Perihelion and work began on what would eventually become the Atari Transputer Workstation.
175:, but the name was changed before sales began. Sales were almost non-existent, and the product was canceled after only a few hundred units had been produced.
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One oddity of the ATW is that it appears that the
Blossom is responsible for the DRAM refresh, although the ATW includes such hardware internally.
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The video architecture developed by
Perihelion for the ATW formed the basis of a "high resolution video engine" expansion card envisaged for the
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workstation, connecting to the machine's VMEbus and supporting direct memory access transfers to and from system RAM.
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mode 0: 1280 by 960 pixels, 16 colors out of a palette of 4096 (including 16 true grayscales, on a monochrome monitor)
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The team in charge of the ATW's video system, "Blossom", would later work on another Atari project, the
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While at MetaComCo, much of the
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mode 2: 640 by 480 pixels (2 virtual screens), 256 colors out of a palette of 16.7 million
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Meanwhile, HeliOS is Unix-like enough that it ran standard Unix utilities, including the
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Blossom also includes a number of high-speed effects (128 megapixel fill rates) and
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Atari TT and TT/X Product
Specifications The Design of the TT Computer Series
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in
England. There they started development of a new parallel-processing
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mode 1: 1024 by 768 pixels, 256 colors out of a palette of 16.7 million
271: in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
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the main motherboard containing a T800-20 transputer and 4 MB of
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The Atari
Transputer Workstation system consists of three main parts:
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functionality, including the ability to apply up to four masks on a
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576:...Atari's Abaq computer is based on the Inmos T0800 RISC chip...
532:"Ram's Totally Unofficial Atari Transputer Workstation 800 Pages"
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715:(Technical report). Atari Corporation. 21 April 1989. p. 24
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16:"ABAQ" redirects here. ABAQ is also the callsign for TV station
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598:...The basic Abaq will cost between $ 4000 and $ 5000...
545:"Atari to Display TransputerBased Workstation at Comdex"
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The machine was first introduced at the
November 1987
566:"News:CPU Design:RISC Chips Promise Performance Boot"
433:'s ability to apply several textures to a 3D object.
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Articles written by Mike
Charnley-Fisher at the time
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764:Daves Old Computers – Atari Transputer Workstation
655:, image shows the unreleased single-card solution
588:Hebditch, David; Anning, Nick (28 April 1988).
417:mode 3: 512 by 480 pixels, 16.7 million colors
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187:, along with a few other employees, to start
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596:. Vol. 118, no. 1610. p. 54.
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747:Atari transputer Workstation 800 Data Sheet
429:operation in a fashion similar to a modern
365:the Blossom video system with 1 MB of
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331:Learn how and when to remove this message
574:. Vol. 10, no. 6. p. 81.
632:. Vol. 9, no. 45. p. 5.
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122:Blossom video system with 1 MB of
553:. Vol. 9, no. 49. p. 6.
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404:Blossom supports several video modes:
737:Ram's Totally Unofficial ATW800 Pages
590:"Parallel thinking for powerful chip"
7:
666:"The Atari ABAQ/ATW800 "Transputer""
269:adding citations to reliable sources
742:Atari Transputer at Atarimuseum.com
624:"Atari Floods Comdex With Products"
171:. It was introduced in 1987 as the
622:Stephens, Mark (9 November 1987).
183:In 1986, Tim King left his job at
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362:processor with 512 KB of RAM
141:processor with 512 KB of RAM
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167:in the late 1980s, based on the
564:Mace, Scott (8 February 1988).
256:needs additional citations for
543:Moran, Tom (12 October 1987).
280:"Atari Transputer Workstation"
102:20 MHz T800-20 transputer
1:
691:. pp. 303–304, 306, 308
683:Pountain, Dick (June 1988).
149:Atari Transputer Workstation
24:Atari Transputer Workstation
163:class computer released by
64:; 35 years ago
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351:(expandable to 16 MB)
114:(expandable to 16 MB)
15:
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646:"Abaq ATW Transputer 800"
758:Atari ATW800 information
431:graphics processing unit
399:graphical user interface
354:a complete miniaturized
685:"A Personal Transputer"
530:Ram Meenakshisundaram,
204:Commodore International
1644:Transputer Workstation
1453:Software and utilities
133:Complete miniaturized
1795:Computer workstations
1718:825 80-Column Printer
1624:Atari 8-bit computers
20:in Alpha, Queensland.
484:MegaST I/O subsystem
265:improve this article
233:video game console.
210:for the former, and
1744:Atari joystick port
1486:Video game consoles
752:Transputer emulator
189:Perihelion Software
25:
1723:1020 Color Printer
1678:Portable computers
1617:Personal computers
1259:Return of the Jedi
1014:Cloak & Dagger
651:2010-11-21 at the
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254:This section
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813:Corporations
717:. Retrieved
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263:Please help
258:verification
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231:Atari Jaguar
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155:, or simply
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59:Release date
49:Manufacturer
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1704:Peripherals
1501:Stunt Cycle
1462:Atari BASIC
1399:Triple Hunt
1343:Stunt Cycle
1154:Major Havoc
1126:Jet Fighter
986:Black Widow
874:(1977–1980)
857:Atari Games
835:(1984–1996)
829:(1972–1992)
827:Atari, Inc.
719:22 February
695:21 February
472:Inside view
161:workstation
1789:Categories
1658:Prototypes
1584:Game Brain
1577:Prototypes
1563:VCS (2021)
1430:Prototypes
1406:Ultra Tank
1364:Super Pong
1329:Starship 1
1287:Space Race
1280:Space Duel
1266:Shark Jaws
1217:Quadrapong
1063:Food Fight
1049:Fire Truck
979:Battlezone
514:References
460:Front view
381:HeliOS is
321:March 2021
291:newspapers
216:Amiga 2000
195:known as "
1695:Portfolio
1494:Home Pong
1476:Atari DOS
1357:Super Bug
1322:Star Wars
1273:Sky Diver
1252:Red Baron
1231:Quiz Show
1161:Millipede
1140:Liberator
1035:Destroyer
1007:Centipede
972:Avalanche
944:Asteroids
893:MobyGames
888:Kee Games
766:– manuals
629:InfoWorld
571:InfoWorld
550:InfoWorld
373:about 10
185:MetaComCo
1711:Printers
1634:MEGA STE
1629:Atari ST
1420:Warlords
1315:Sprint 8
1308:Sprint 4
1301:Sprint 2
1294:Sprint 1
1189:Pin-Pong
1119:Indy 800
1105:I, Robot
1091:Gravitar
993:Breakout
867:AtariAge
839:Atari SA
649:Archived
612:Tim King
508:Farmcard
427:bit-blit
237:Overview
212:AmigaDOS
208:ST BASIC
119:Graphics
110:4 MB of
1690:ST Book
1599:Panther
1438:Tank II
1385:Tempest
1245:Rebound
1224:Quantum
1210:Pursuit
1056:Firefox
1042:Dominos
926:Arcades
820:Primary
423:blitter
356:Mega ST
305:scholar
179:History
159:) is a
153:ATW-800
135:Mega ST
69:1989-05
67: (
35:ATW-800
1665:Sierra
1649:Falcon
1604:Sierra
1589:Cosmos
1551:Jaguar
1378:Tank 8
1182:Outlaw
1133:LeMans
1112:Indy 4
1098:Hi-way
1070:Gotcha
903:Tengen
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223:COMDEX
197:HeliOS
107:Memory
91:HeliOS
1762:Other
1685:STacy
1639:TT030
1568:2600+
1238:Qwak!
806:Atari
441:TT030
312:JSTOR
298:books
130:Input
1594:2700
1546:Lynx
1541:XEGS
1536:7800
1531:5200
1524:2800
1519:2600
1371:Tank
1196:Pong
721:2024
697:2024
689:Byte
383:Unix
375:MIPS
284:news
173:Abaq
147:The
43:Abaq
387:MMU
360:I/O
349:RAM
267:by
157:ATW
139:I/O
112:RAM
98:CPU
80:350
39:ATW
18:ABQ
1791::
1556:CD
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