What would happen if IDR stops making the CMD? Do we go back to using the Targa? Make some sort of deal with IO Research? Buy all those cards from VideoLogic? Try to manufacture it ourselves? The last option, oddly enough, was the least feasible. The triple processor architecture was born out of the need to use up the supply of 82786s; it made the board expensive to manufacture, difficult to test and prone to failure. So what about IO Research? I could tell Stephen was getting tired of running through all these scenarios every lunchtime.
The restaurant of the Old Bull Inn was set back from Royston High Street. The food was good and reasonably priced and there was usually a quiet corner where we couldn’t be overheard; although, apart from PATCentre, there were few high-tech companies in Royston. The barmaid banged the plates on the table; Digithurst had fallen from favour. Our Swiss distributors had stayed here the previous week. They had left the shower running with a flannel stuffed in the outlet and flooded the room and, eventually, the bar. That’s why the lights on the Christmas tree weren’t working. Stephen had brought a folder of sales and technical data from the office.
I had heard of Inmos, but never given the company or their microprocessor, the Transputer, much thought. Stephen sketched out the design for a MicroEye II, based on the Transputer rather than three Intel processors …
… (An extract from The Ghost in the Labyrinth by Peter Kruger)
