website/content/museum/atari-abaq-atw-transputer-800.md

---
title: Atari Abaq ATW Transputer 800
categories:
- Computers
types:
- Professional Computer
origins:
- U.S.A.
years:
- '1987'
cpus:
- RISC Inmos T-800 32 bits
params:
  name: Abaq ATW Transputer 800
  image: /media/museum/photos/abaq.jpg
  company: /companies/atari
  company_name: Atari
  specs:
  - label: NAME
    value: Abaq ATW Transputer 800
  - label: MANUFACTURER
    value: Atari
  - label: TYPE
    value: Professional Computer
  - label: ORIGIN
    value: U.S.A.
  - label: YEAR
    value: '1987'
  - label: CPU
    value: RISC Inmos T-800 32 bits (4 mips)
  - label: SPEED
    value: Unknown
  - label: CO-PROCESSOR
    value: Unknown
  - label: RAM
    value: 4 MB
  - label: VRAM
    value: 1 MB
  - label: ROM
    value: Unknown
  - label: TEXT MODES
    value: Unknown
  - label: GRAPHIC MODES
    value: '4 modes, maximums : 1280 x 960 and 1024 x 768'
  - label: COLORS
    value: 16 (1280 x 960), 256 (1024 x 768) among 16.7 millions
  - label: SOUND
    value: Unknown
  - label: I/O PORTS
    value: Unknown
  - label: BUILT IN MEDIA
    value: Unknown
  - label: OS
    value: HELIOS
  tabs:
  - photos
  - links
  photos:
  - title: ATW TRANSPUTERS AT KODAK'S
    subtitle: ''
    text: This photo was "secretly" taken at a Kodak-owned facility, notice all the Mega ST keyboards linked to a ATW station (once again obtained through classified sources).
    image: /media/museum/photos/atw.jpg
  - title: MY ATARI ATW 800 TRANSPUTER
    subtitle: ''
    text: The picture of the main page shows the Atari Transputer card plugged onto a Mega STf. This photo shows the 'real' Atari ATW 800 Transputer station. There are only 250 (!) transputers in the world ! The 50 first models are prototypes and the 200 other ones were sold to Kodak. My (Thierry speaking here) transputer belongs to the 50 prototypes.
    image: /media/museum/photos/atw0.jpg
  - title: THE ATARI ATW 800 MOTHER BOARD
    subtitle: ''
    text: 'There are three boards in the ATW : the front card is the Atari STf motherboard, & has all the features of the Atari Mega STf 4, except its SCSI port. The board on the background is the ATW board, the yellow chip is the Inmos T800 CPU. Between the two cards, there is a video card with 1 MB RAM.'
    image: /media/museum/photos/atw2.jpg
  - title: ATW 800 OFFICIAL PROMO PICTURE
    subtitle: ''
    text: Thanks to Marcus Baum for this picture
    image: /media/museum/photos/atw800prm_s.jpg
  links:
  - title: ATW User's lair
    url: http://www.acbm.com/atw/
    text: ATW users mailing list
  - title: Internet Parallel Computing Archive
    url: http://wotug.ukc.ac.uk/parallel/transputer/
    text: Lot of Links about parallel computers
  - title: Ram's Transputer Home Page
    url: http://www.classiccmp.org/transputer/
    text: Very informative page about Transputers
  - title: The Transputer Archive
    url: http://archive.comlab.ox.ac.uk/transputer.html
    text: The Transputer archive contains information relevant to the transputer microprocessor designed by Inmos
  - title: Wikipedia Transputer page
    url: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Transputer_Workstation
    text: Nice detailed page
  - title: Web Wiz CAPTCHA
    url: http://www.webwizcaptcha.com
    text: The Transputer and OCCAM language
  comments:
  - author: Jesper Henriksen (Denmark)
    date: Wednesday 5th November 2014
    text: ST Microelectronics bought the rights to the transputer. It is still in use today in their Set-Top Box ICs.
  - author: Franz (Netherlands)
    date: Tuesday 27th December 2011
    text: |-
      I managed to get an ATW shortly after the project was abandoned and because of the lacking documentation contacted Perihelion to see if I could get anything from them. During the conversation it was clear they were really pissed. They said they has a deal with Atari. Atari would deliver the hardware and do the distribution, Perihelion would deliver the software. With the ATW was a bundle of documentation including registration and guarantee cards. On reception, Atari would forward the registration cards to Perihelion. It turned out they didn''t. This was either the start of a nasty relationship, or the last straw, but the conversation made it quite clear that this was one of the major issues that broke the cooperation.

      I still find it a great loss, the whole thing - including the T800 - was lightyears ahead of its time.
  - author: Malcolm Ramage (United Kingdom)
    date: Thursday 26th May 2011
    text: |-
      There were 2 reasons the Abaq/ATW failed, the price and Atari''s inability to market the thing, never mind market it to places that would actually make use of it.

      In terms of processor "Power", Intel chips could not match the Transputers ability to do complex calculations until 5 years AFTER the ATW had been made and discontinued, and could not do multi processor calculations as well until around 2007 (Some may argue it still can''t do this as well, even with multi-core processors but that is another argument and I''m not siding either way). Bare in mind that up until 2004, most servers could not handle more than 4 CPU''s as adding more than this started to reduce performance, whereas in 1987 you could farm many more transputers which would work in harmony AND each individual chip could process calculations faster than any chip in PC''s of the time. The failure of the ATW lies at Atari''s door. They were trying to make technology for markets they had no idea about or how to approach.

      It was a brave and bold move at the time, but was too much for such a company, that is why it failed.
  - author: Link (Hyrule)
    date: Friday 8th April 2005
    text: they failed because PCs got cheaper and just as powerful.
  - author: saad salim (liverpool)
    date: Wednesday 27th October 2004
    text: i just need to know where can i find why atari abaq transputor failed. need some links to know where can i required question.
  oc_id: 33
  source:
    url: https://web.archive.org/web/20230324201243/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=33
    date: '2023-03-24'
---

This strange machine was shown at Comdex in 1987. It was designed for graphics intensive applications taking advantage of the parallel processing capacities of the INMOS transputer.

Two models were sold: one of them was a card which could be connected onto a [Mega STf](/museum/atari-mega-st/) bus expansion to use its peripherals (keyboard, disk, etc.). The other was a computer in which there was a motherboard with a single transputer plus a card which contained all the Atari Mega STf hardware to use its peripherals!

The motherboard included slots to add up to four more processor cards, each with up to four transputers, to enable multiprocessing.

It ran under Helios, an operating system done by the British company **Perihelion**, derived from UNIX but specially adapted for parallel processing).

A C language was adapted and a parallel processing language called OCCAM. Only few of these computers were sold, most of them to Kodak.