Real-time Synthesis on a Multi-processor Network

At the 1990 ICMC, this research group presented a paper on a multi-transputer based system [Bailey et al., 1990] and demonstrated a prototype module consisting of 16 transputers on a single card. During the intervening period, ten of these cards have been developed into an operational audio processing network, using 160 x T800 floating-point transputers, clocked at 17.5 MHz. This paper describes the network and the first implementations of real-time direct synthesis on it, using a MIDI-based control system. The key research issue concerns the optimal usage of processor inter-communications and scheduling for audio processors.