0 DIGITAL COMPUTER Margoro a A SgaAsaciae Eito Judy 1EdooralAsisan Judy 66riw Edtoi11ssst0t-A n OFFICL POLICYVA NOICESERH-M T a o Vo 1ur6 No 2 Isrik W pi16 odtiEio E EditoriioralAsisln Eibutaionisan Contrick EDIOM TRIANL PO digita MEAILWNCSIV GodnD Ju 3 d Veo# ATA PROTCESSOS OT 41 MRC Cadifornial3 4 Control Dta orprto 105 Bunrvrogsity rporatlionosijiita 6 LovesAlmo7SCaieontifi 3 TnierasitfCiao outo eier oWimn Comptinrc Institut RChbiltaionan for e sal Laboratory Ilinis Syomputer Laboratoy nttte Cemutnt er sAante Research Cohue ie inaoi Detroit s NeB Mnelies Z4 icagIlni 54 Tramet 6 Tinesoas 8 U S Naval Underwater Ordnance Station NUOS Computing Facility Newport Rhode Island 9 U S Naval Weapons Laboratory Cuomputation Center Dahlgren Virginia 8 8 COMPUTI L S AND CENTERS OVERSEAS 1 Universita Degli Studi Di G cnro vaý Laboratorlo di Electronica Genoa Italy Z Siemaens and Halske A GC Z004 andi 3003 Computing Systems Munich Germany 3 Standard Elektrik L orenz AG On-Line Cheque Handling and Accounting Stuttgart 10 10 Germany Iis 4 Department of Supply Weapons Research Establishment Salisbury South Australia S The Weizimann Institute of Science Medical Research Use of Computer Rehovoth Israel I5 ' 21 MISCELLANEOUS 1 2 3 4 Detroit Police Department IBM 1401 As a Law Enforcement Aid Detroit Michigan A B Dick Company Electronic Photo Composition System Chicago 48 Illinois University of Illinois PLATO 11 and III Urbana Illinois Massachusetts Institute of Technology Project MAC--Goals and Status Cambridge Massachusetts 5 Office of Naval Research Symposium on Computer Augmentation of Human Reasoning June 16-17 1964 Washington D C Z0360 6 Univac Division of Sperry Rand Corporation Univac 1107 Toronto City Traffic Control New York 19 New York 22 Z3 24 26 9 3 7 U S Navy Bureau of Naval Weapons RREN Digital Static Resolver Washington D C 20360 13 Reproduced by the for Federal Scianlitic Technical nfornntior Springfiold Va 22151 D D The Under Secretary of the Navy September 1961 OT625 Li C 10 NAVEXOS P-645 7 4 Jl - I A % DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY OFFICE OF NAVAL RESEARCH WASHINGrON 0 C 03aO 0NR 437 5SJ rnar I July 1964 MICROEIECThONICS ANDl LA GE SYs EMS November 17 1i 1964 Department of Interior Auditorium Washington U C ii S3mposiuiq on Microelectronics and Large Srstems co-sponsored by the Off cw of Naval Research Information Systeý s Branch and the Univarc Division of Sperry Rand Corporation will he held on Thuesay and t' id le- • November 17 and 1 8 1964 Aihi Smpos iuxe All he conducted in The auditorium in the Departinent o ' the Ir bevior BuildIng on C rt between 18th and gth Streets N 4 'Lshinngton D C Lhis S mp•csium unll be generally concerned with the application of tiicrocirru ts to very large corputing systems The emphasis will be on various novel approaches to this problem rather than conventional yblid techniques that replace discrete circuits by equivalent microc ijruit s 0ne specific subject of interest will be the unique logic 'ap bilities possessed by large arrays of inexpensive logic circuits An nat mnt wi 2 I be made to present the state-of-the-art of large microe2lectronile systems a limited amount of the present research on large system3 a few of the different logic systems and some special techniques that are particularly applicable to very large microelectronic -ystems It vAill not be the purpose of this Symposium to review and inaly e all appropriate efforts and results but rather to present r •presentative aspects of the field Accordingy the number of invited ppnakers has been limited in order to allow the speakers to develop and icu ým their topics in greater depth It i3 anticipated that formal proceedings will be published in the Summer ofý9A5 Attendance at this unclassified Symxposium is open to all interested technical personnel Further information and a preliminary program when available may be obtained by contacting Mr John E Kumpf Univac Division of perry Rand 2121 Wisconsin Avenue N W Washington 7 D C Area Code 202-338-8510 Ext 307 a J MAIMIS 1 Office of Naval Rescarch ovmposium Co-Chairman S I Editorial Policy Notices CURRENT PUBLICATION PLAN Because of staffing problems the Digital Computer Newsletter was not published in October 1962 and during 1963 Commencing with the January 1964 issue however the norquarterly schedule was resumed Frmal To assist our readers in maintaining continuity in the statv of the art the January issue was devoted entirely to material scheduled for previous issues The April issue is a combination of new material and some older contributions which could niot be included in the January issue EDITORIAL The Digital Computer Newsletter although a Department of the Navy publication is not restricted to the publication of Navy-originated material The Office of Naval Research welcomes contributions to the Newsletter from any source The Newsletter is subjected to certain limitations in size which prevent publishing all the material received However items which are not printed arc kept on file and are made available to interested personnel within the Government DCN Is published quarterly January April July and October Material for specific issues must be received by the editor at least three months in advancei It is to be noted that the publication of information pertaining to commercial products does not in any way imply Navy approval of thdse products nor does it mean that Navy vouches for the accuracy of the statements made by the various contributors The information contained herein is to be considered only as being representative of the state-ofthe-art and not as the sole product or technique available CONTRIBUTIONS The Office of Naval Research welcomes contributions to the Newsletter from any source JI Your contributions will provide assistance in improving the contents of the publication thereby making it an even better medium for the exchange of information between government laboratories academic Institutions and industry It is hoped that the readers will participate to an even greater extent than in the past in transmitting technical material and suggestions to the editor for future issues Material for specific issues must be received by the editor at least three months in advance It is often impossible for the editor because of limited time and personnel to acknowledge individually all material received CIRCULATION The Newsletter is distributed without charge to interested military and government agencies to contractors for the Federal Government and to contributors of material for publication For many years in addil ion to the ONR initial distribution the Newsletter was reprinted by the Association for Computing Machinery as a supplement to their Journal and more recentl- as a supplemnent to their Communicati ns The Association decided that their Communications could better serve its members by concentrating on ACM editorial material Accordingly effective with the combined January-April 1961 issue the Newsletter became available only by direct distribution from the Office of Naval Research Requests to receive the Newsletter regularly should be submitted to the editor Contractors of the Federal Government should reference applicable contracts in their requests All communications pertaining to the Newsletter should be addressed to GORDON D GOLDSTEIN Editor Digital Computer Newsletter Informations Systems Branch Office of Naval Research Washington D C 20360 Computers and Data Processors North America 1 825 System to Naval Research Laboratory Blurrougtla Corplmaion bertail 72 Mihipin A D825 modular data processing system the electronic computer industry's first large scale general purpose system with thin film memory to be delivered has successfully passed the Naval Research Laboratory's rigid acceptance trials The D825 the first system in Burroughs newly developed fully modular D000 series was delivered on contract schedule and quickly passed the Navy's tests The Navy has not revealed how it will use the highly flexible solid-state system The D825 was developed and produced by Burroughs Laboratories in Paoli Pa a division of Burroughs Defense and Space Group The modular concept on which the D825 is based permits easy expandability without changing programming or instructions by addition of memory computer control and other modules as needed allows simultaneous processing of multiple problems and provides the ability to establish priorities in operation Processing of data is greatly speeded by 1 microsecond access to newly developed thin film memories in the arithmetic units which serve as a scratch pad memory Another memory feature is that if power fails informstimon beinproed y Is th is etrifpowereails tion being processed retrieý ed' without without lcan loss These abilities are vital in military electronic command and control situations which demand high speed processing maximum reliability and the greatest versatility They are made possible by the D825's automatic operating and scheduling program AOSP This program acting as central director and assigner of duties all of the functional devices in the system allocates devices to problems on the basis of equipment availability Because of this new approach to computer organization the system operate efficiently not available at a given even time if all elements are of data when processing is resurned after power restoration The Air Force has ordered 1'7 of the D825 systems in a $24 450 000 contract for its back-up interceptor control BUIC system to assist in protection of the North American continent against air attack Another D325 at Burroughs Laboratories in Paoli was used in a successful Telstar communications experiment Telstar received computer test messages from the D825 and relayed them to Burroughs corporate headquarters in Detroit where they were printed out of an 5203 high speed electrostatic printer The D825 can be expanded from a basic system to include from 1 to 4 computer roodules I to 16 memories 1 to 10 input-output control modules 1 or 2 input-output exchanges and I to 54 peripheral devices for each I O exchange These devices may be chosen from a broad range of magnetic tape transports drums and disc files paper tape perforators and readers displays consoles and supervisory printers high speed page printers data converters communications equipment special real time clocks and inter-system data links 2 Computing Centers Research Computing Center Medical llniv rr ily ' li rni n I u • Angrk• • Li Anghrie 24 Californtia 9 Proving that complex-biochemical experiments now conducted in the laboratory may one day be performed more rapidly precisely and economically with computer assistance In one project chemical responses of blood to various factors in surgery are simulated and analyzed by the computer During 1963 the nation's largest computing installation for medical research was placed in operation at UCLA's Center for the Health Sciences Demonstrations of its use ip brain heart blood and other medical research underscore the growing importance of computers in medicine T Aiding the analysis of huge masses of medical data In one effort the Computer is a principal tool in a Los Angeles heart study aimed at discovering causes associated with heart disease and conditions which keep people free of heart trouble The new $3 300 000 Health Sciences Cormputing Facility was made possible by grants from the National Institutes of Health It consists of IBM 7094 and 1410 data processing systems They are able to exchange information and computing power electronically with other medical research centers Storage of large masses of research data for instantaneous retrieval and processing is provided by two IBM 1301 disk storage units which can handle nearly 112 million characters of information e Serving as a tool in research aimed at development of a hospital-wide system of automated record handling storage aid retrieval This project involvesdevelopment ofa computerstored thesaurus of disease conditions for automatic coding of disease NIH is especially interested in this facility's role as a laboratory within a laboratory Under the grant UCLA's Biomedical Data Processing Group will continue its pioneering work in research and development of statistical mathematical and educational techniques which will further The UCLA facility could be the forerunner of a number of similar centers in different parts of the nation which one day may provide physicians and medical scientists with direct access to a computer for assistance in diagnosis as well as research Helping provide significant new knowlg rganideationofbrainsytems duedge eoepin on the the organization of brain systems during sleep fatigue weightlessness vibration prolonged darkness and other conditions astronauts may encounter in space fight broaden the computer's value to medical science Dr Dixon and Dr Frank J Massey biostatisticians in the School of Public Health head a UCLA team responsible for creating a series of computer programs valuable in sophisticated statistical analysis of a wide variety of medical data This continuing effort has resulted to date in creation of more than 50 separate computer programs These programs known as the BIMD series have been distributed by UCLA on request to more than 150 research centers throughout the nation They are considered to be the most comprehensive collection of general purpose data processing programs currently available for use in medical research A majority of more than 100 medical research projects currently assisted by the Health Sciences Analyzing brain wave data acquired by an experimental astronaut helmet developed by scientists at UCLA's Brain Research Institute and Space Biology Laboratory Computing Facility use the BIMD series programs For example one of these programs is the basis of the spectral analysis of electroencephalographic records The new computing center has two major functions to provide computing support for medical r--'-rch and to serve as a base for e use of the computer itself as it researc iogy and medicine The existence relates u of this center reflects a policy of the National Institutes of Health to help provide broad investigational resources to institutions at which it also sponsors individual research projects The computing system at UCLA now is 3 • U I CO MPLnAl tl _1 U lllent In December 1963 the research capabilities of the California Institute of Technology were greatly advanced by the addition of a versatile computer complex designed to serve a wide variety of scientific and engineering research programs Dedicated were the handsome new threestory Willis H Booth Computing Center Building large IBM information processing facilities and auxiliary equipment with remote stations that enable students faculty members and research facilities to make full use of the system at any time Many investigators can use it in effect simultaneously The heart of the sophisticated system combines two large IBM computers-a 7090 and a 7040 Caltech electronics engineers in cooperation with IBM engineers have linked the two so that the 7040 handies the housekeeping chores such as monitoring input and output thus enabling the 7090 to devote virtually all of its time to high-speed calculating Somewhat as the 7040 mouilors the 7090 an IBM 7288 Multiplexor controls the traffic of communication between the 7040 anld other components several of which were designed by Caltech engineers These include consoles remote from the computing center various display devices such as printers a Burroughs 220 computer and data-gathering units capable of controlling experiments gathering data from them and relaying the information to the computing center This large flexible versatile system was tailored to meet Caltech's specific needs said Dr Gilbert D McCann Jr director of the computing center It is for use on a wide variety of research projects and is designed to interact with the people the research and the educational activities of the Institute The system is designed for a wide variety of applications and to handle virtually simultaneously the problems of many different research projects Data can be fed into consoles to be relayed to the interplexing system where the data will be reassigned with some problems being referred perhaps to ihe Burroughs 220 for solution The 7040 itself may resolve some problems It will refer complex ones to the 7090 The 7040 may stop the 7090 from working on one problem direct it to store the information concerning that problem so that it may tackle a more pressing problem solve it and then resume work on the original one This may take from a few seconds up to a few minutes The data reduction complex can meet the requirements of many individual research projects The data may be brought to the computing center for conventional prpcessing Or a Caltoch-designed console may be set up ýn any laboratory on a permanent or temporary basis so that researchers may converse with the computer In this way their research may be directed by computer results with a minimum loss of time The computing center alsp may be directly linked with research facilities and will take data directly from such instruments as the atom-smashing synchrotron In addition the computer center is set up to conduct experimonts turning on and off stimuli at stated times and recording the resulting data In neurobiological studies for instance the optic nerve of a crab's eye may be connected directly with the computer Thus a light passed in front of the living eye stimulates nerve impulses that go directly into the computer via the optic nerve These trains of nerve impulses are recorded and analyzed One of the major purposes of the new center is to make it possible for Caltech to undertake big research programs Dr McCann said The tremendous data reduction tasks required of many complex modern research programs such as those involved in understanding the origins and evolution of the universe the geophysics of the earth or the workings of the brain find the human mind incapable of coping with them Such data reduction tasks are so great that scientists without computers could not reduce the data within their lifetimes With computers becoming more and more useful in science and engineering the need to understand their theory and operation becomes urgent Caltech students are being taught how to program and operate computer systems as an important part of their technical education The computing system will continue to grow and expand to meet the changing requirements of Caltech In addition to providing space for computing facilities laboratories offices and classrooms the Booth Computing I Center also houses an elaborate electronics shop In it engineers and technicians tinder the supervision of electronics engineer Ciiarles B Ray design and build components for ti e system be linked with Celtech's satellite campuses the Mount Wilson and Palomar Observatories and the Caltech Radio Observatory in Owens Valley When the computing complex is operating at full potential by the spring of 1964 it will be available to any of Caltech's 800 rese ý rch projects Eventually the system probably will The new computing center building was made possible by gifts from the Booth Ferris Foundation of New York City and the National Science Foundation Institute for Computer Research Untiv eni ¥ Chimpg C'hu ig filflum ALGOL Compiler A one-pass ALGOL Compiler is in operation on the Maniac III computer at the Institute It includes all features of the 1963 revision of ALGOL 60 except that it does not andle recursive procedures or own variables These restrictions will be removed from the two-pass compiler now under development for the CDC 3600 in cooperation with the Argonne National Laboratory This work has been under the direction of H Kanner with P Kosinski and Charles Robinson participating Spark Chamber A digitized spark chamber using wire electrodes and core storage is under development for on-line operation with the computer to hantdle experiments in high energy physics Small modules of these chambers have been operated with the cyclotron at the University of Chicago and we hope shortly to have a physics experiment completed and ready for publication This work is being carried on by a group headed by Michael Neumann A novel feature of this program is that veryhighdata rates are obtainable considerably higher than those permitted by most other spark chamber systems which permit automatic data retrieval Maniac IIl Computer The Maniac III computer has been in steady operation for the past year and a half Approximately half of the available time has been used for programming studies the remainder of the time being used for engineering work toward completion of the basic machine The Maniac III computer was described in Digital Computer Newsletter April and July 1960 Extensive arithmetic acceptance tests have been run totalling well over a million examples of each of the various kinds of arithmetic operations the machine permits Personnel Changes at the Institute The Institute Director's office has been taken over by R H Miller and Mr John Shepherd now serves as Chief Engineer on the Maniac III program 1604-A Delivery to Weizmunn Institute Israel alltnd 1 flaCll#• wlrl tl'I linur'tpoli 20 Vlnnf-witt l In January 1963 Control Data Corporation delivered its first 1604-A system overseas to the Weizmann Institute Rehovoth Israel The key unit to be installed is the Control Data 1604-A while a second computer the desk-size Control Data 160-A is to be used in conjunction with the 1604-A Either computer commands and controls a wide range of peripheral equipment including 12 new Control Data 606 pneumatically controlled Magnetic Tape Units a 1000-line-a-minute printer a card-reader and card-punch system and additional magnetic core memory and arithmetic units I Representatives of The Weizmann Institute rhe Control Data 1604-A 160-A Computer complex will be out to work in mnnt r•pao -h which is located near Tel Aviv Israel indiatied that broan research plans are in store for departments of The Weizmann Institute The range of activity includes hydro-dynamics investigation of ocean tides to determine ond predict tide levels geophysics and the examination of the earth's natural oscillation as well as forced tremors resulting from earthquakes and nuclear explosions and low temperature crystallography the Control Data computers Among the major problems that the computers will help solve is one that involves the determination of atomic energy levels from pure theory The Weizmann Institute's Nuclear Physics Department is also planning bubble chamber investigations in cooperation with CERN the Central European Research Organization hoping to shed new light on the nature of elementary particles I itital omputer V tj 1lnivent J LNboratory 1 id I dIiftfntl Ill lilm The Circuit Research Group of the Digital Computer Laboratory has successfully operat d a tunnel-diode buffer amplifier at above I kMc This amplifier can accept a signal from a generator of arbitrary impedance without giving rise to reflections The power gain is about 100 the voltage gain 1 3 The amplifier consists of two broadside-coupled strip lines with the input line having 200-ohm characteristic impedance and the output line being kept at a 20-ohm level The output line is terminated by 20 ohms and -20 ohms respectively the latter being obtained from an appropriately biased tunnel diode Work is in progress to build photocouplod logical elements these are infra-red GalliumArsenide lamps and Riesz-type photocells Switching times of tho order of 10 nanoseconds have been obtained Other work in progress covers Hot Electron Logic Microplasm Switching and theoretical work in the semiconductor area lormputinii Center but Ilattm New A 'xh' 8¢75 1 S Scientific Sbeen The MANIAC II Computer at Los Alamos Laboratory now has 20 480 words of core memory the barrier grid memory has dismantled include a suitable notation for combinatorial and set-theoretic calculations The NET program described in Los Alamos Report LA-2B53 for calculating both transient and steady-state behavior of electronic circuits is in full production Machine time is available for circuit calculations to Government agencies and contractors the price is $250 an hour The MADCAP Language which uses 86 character sub- and superscripting Flexowriters has been most successful and is going into its fourth major edition It has been expanded to Computer Aided Medical Treatment Teva ohf iae' or liehiahililaliu aid ll 'arh for Rehabilitation and Research are opening new frontiers in treatment of long-term illnesses A new approach to treatment and rehabilitation of victims of crippling disease and Injury has slashed long-term stays here between onethird and one-half Using computers and other electronic aids physicians at the Texas Institute As a result of this work sponsored by the Vocational Rehabilitation Administration The 6 I i I National AeronautlMnir nnd ' A4 4 h 64 ni- Rc 17 -nowlc course of the illness or condition is a major fe ctor in deciding the kind and time of treatmont Doctor must decide fur oxamplc how has asked the Institute to study the effects on healthy persons of extended inactivity in a prone position such as that rrqiltred for spnce travel soon a paralyzed patient's body can be elevated to a sitting position If attempted too soon this position could place heavy stress on the heart Computer analysis of data on many patients indicated that persons with paralysis of the legs only paraplegia could be placed in an upright position on a motorized table after 2 weeks of gradual treatment Those who had lost motor power in all four limbs quadriplegia required 2 months before they coulti be tilted to an upright position without excessive heart stress computer analysis showed Knowing thio TIRR adapted jet pilots' G-suits for use by patients 0-suits are worn by pilots to prevent blood from piling up in lower limbs during gravity stress The adapted suits enable patients to be brought to upright positions early in their rehabilitation In a similar way other necessary treatment could be accelerated Dr William A Spencer Director of the 54-bed research affiliate of the Baylor University College of Medicine has coined a name for the approach TIRR is taking He calls it medical humanetics a union of medicine psychology social science mathematics and computer technology We treat the 'whole man ' not just his illness A cornerstone of this approach has been the use of Baylor's two IBM data processing systems a 1401 and a 1620 to analyze and correlate thousanrds of pieces of data about individual patients The result has been a wealth of Infermation enabling physicians at TIRR to anticipate more accurately the course of a disease and solect the treatment which hastens recovery without placing stresses on the patient's system Also this has meant a direct reduction in hospital stays at TIRR sometimes as much as one half This means twice as many patients can be treated The implications in a world of overcrowded hospitals are obvious Another problem how to conduct early rehabilitation procedures such as exercises in physical and occupational therapy without putting physiological stresses on the patient's system In some patients reactions were so subtle and general that they had been considered insignificant The reactions included increased pulse rate nausea mood changes and decreased ability to concentrate Computer analysis showed that some paralyzed patients were producing excessive amounts of the hormone cortisone and that cortisone levels were significantly higher inpatients with spinal cord injuries than in those with polio-induced paralysis Physicians at TIER are now trying to learn how to offset these stress conditions and start patients on an earlier road to recovery TIRR is using techniques it developed in treating sick people to determine the elfeets of prolonged bed rest on healthy persons Numerous data are being recorded by electronic physiological monitoring equipment developed by Baylor and TIER The information is being analyzed by an IBM 7094 computer at NASA's Houston space center We expect to determine the precise effects of prolonged Inactivity on the human body and how to minimize these effects One of the problems which has been attacked at TIRR by Dr Paul R Harrington is that of scoliosis This condition affects 30 000 Amoricans each year-80 percent of them childrenby causing severe and often fatal distortion of their spines Computer measurement of data has enabled TIRR to improve a surgical method of straightening spines with assurance that the operation will be lastingly effective The cornputer has calculated the precise time period 12 weeks to the day that patients should upend in a post-opcrative cast Computer analysis indicated that after a shorter period the spine tends to return toward its original position After longer periods other organs and body systems are adversely affected Some of TIRR's oaier findings based on computer analysis of patient data Doctors can predict soon after an accident or he onset of an illness affecting the nervous system whether a patient will recover muscle strength quickly or 4lowly Unsuspected heart trouble in diabetics can be diagnosed by mensuring the wave velocity of a patient's pulse Children with cystic fibrosis will suffi- loss stunting of growth if they undergo uygen deep-breathing exercises several times daily Dr Spencer describes the electronic cornputer as an extension of the human mind which offers physicians a now freedom to practict thu art of medicine We arn flooded by a rising sea of data blood pressure readings eleetrocardiugrams temperature charts and lab test In addition thousands of research reports are The most important overall human problem TIRR deals with is rehabilitation of paralyzed '7 muUIioibhUd 1WunIiIly Cuiiipuierb Will unabic Ub rurz LU W tie all this information together to find out what it means in terms of one patient--how he changes uiy dU kiu d wt Uk iu WVf% 11U LU UW11- pare his condition to that of others before and after him N1IIS 0wnputing Facility I V•u f I '• 'ii' 1rig JdIuI r S tatio • ' 'vmpl m Ihod Aland The computing facility at the Naval Underwater Ordnance Station consists of an IBM 1620 Computer with 60K memory and floating point hardware Input output is by card or magnetic tape Supporting equipment includes an Analog to Digital Converter a Paper Tape to Magnetic Tape Converter Boscar Model N Film Reader a Telecordex Oscillograph Reader ar Electroplotter and an assortment of IBM peripheral equipment and for underwater tracking using both synchronous and asynchronous data Other problems handled by the group includes digital simulation of tactical situations These studies are basically used to detervane the overall weapon system effectiveness and is measured generally as a kill probability Statistical application of the 1620 computer to the evaluation of oceanographic information forms a third major workload for the computer Studies are continuing in the determination of sound velocity density salinity content movement of surface and subsurface currents and in the periodicities exhibited by oceanographic data The facility is 9taffed by 12 mathematicians and is participating in a graduate level cooperative program with Northeastern University Evaluation of underwater range tracking systems form the major workload of the IBM 1602 Mathematics have been developed and programs written for estimating the best sound velocity Direct mathematizal support is provided to project engineers and to other proximate naval activities as required Computation 'Center U' S Nfmw 'rap I' hib 11 I al STRETCH Hardware Configuration 1 Operator's Console The STRETCH IBM 7030 computer has been in operation since October 1962 The cystem includos the following components Two IBM 1401 Model C4 8K memory systems in an adjoining area are available for inputoutput processing Core Memory O 49K 40 152 72-bit words consisting of 64-data plus 8-check bits STRETCH Programming Aids The software package provided by IBM includes a FORTRAN compiler STRETCH Assembly Program STRAP STRETCH Macro Language Processor SMAC Input-Output Control Subroutine IOCS and Master Control Program MCP A Memory two 8K air cooled B Memory two 16K air cooled 2 Tape Channels 10 Tape Units 7291V five units per channel NWL has made several additions to the original software package provided by IBM These additions include a Segmented Loader a Sort-Merge Program a Post-Mortem Dump facility mathematical subroutines extensions to IOCS and a 1401 I O package 1 Disk Memory 2 097 152 words 1 Card Reader 1000 cards per minute I Card Punch I Printer 250 cards per minute The Segmented Loader provides a means of running a computer program which is too large to fit into core memory at one time The facility 600 lines per minute 8 A- I irginui DIahdjp I A- iP6 j t LvUiYw j•JIIIU UIlt uVai U buh 1 he i 40i ti pacxage was aesignea to proc- that partition segment can be loaded into core each memory as needed A Technical Memoran- input andamoutput with as ess muchSTRETCH efficiencysyslem and flexibility possible The d No 1-22 •2 m A Method of Progrsm Segmentation for the STRETCH Computer is available input section of the package checks control card validity fetches programs from a merge tape if called for and thus prepares STRETCH system input tapes The output section of the package produces listings both 1403 and CRT and punches cards from STRETCH system output tapes The Sort-Merge Program is a generalized subroutine for sorting FORTRAN logical binary records or FORTRAN prepared BCD records The subroutine uses a polyphase-merge technique which is more efficient than the commonly used cascade-merge technique A Technical Memorandum No K-30 63 7030 Sort-Merge Program is available The Post-Mortem Dump was designed primarily with the FORTRAN programmer in mind and eliminates much of the tedium associated with program debugging by presenting the values of program symbols in a readily assimilable form A Technical Memorandum No Dump Facility for K-73 63 STRETCH Post-Mortemn iost-Moate Dupwas STRETCH is available NORC The design of a one-pass FORTRAN cornpiler for NORC has been completed An almost complete subset of the FORTRAN IV language as possible can be processed by the Initial version Implementation of the FORTRAN compiler facilitated by the addition of a new instruction in the NORC which simplifies the setting of Included in the mathematical subroutines are Zeros of a Polynomial Least Squares Polynomial Fit Matrix Inversion Integration Normal Frequency Function Random Number Generation and Data Smoothing index registers The following features have been incorporated into IOCS End-of-file detection on disk and tape Format extensions for data handling applications Automatic output editing features and Serial 0 a prototype of the Digital Geoballistic Computer DGBC used for lire control on later Polaris submarines was installed at this laboratory during the summer of 1963 Simulators for some of the shipboard devices with which the DGBC normally communicates are installed and others are being constructed Serial 0 is used for development and testing of computer programs for use by the Polaris fleet Increased buffers for BCD data Polaris DGBC Serial 0 Computers and Centers Overseas Laborstorio di hlcttronica i 'nivmmrril IJgrgi Stuili Genrea Italy IN •nuava to gain a better insight int o the problems and the machines Research projects will be undertaken at the local Laboratorio di Elettronica especially in the fields of Boolean Algebra and didactical computers Dr Frisiani welcomes suggestions publications and any material that may be useful in the general planning of the activities Since October 1963 Dr Ing Arrigo L Frdsiani has been Professor in Charge of the Computers' Section of the recently established Electronic Engineering curriculum at the University of Genoa Students attending the regular course on computers will be able to use the facilities of the University's Computing Center presently equipped with an IBM 1620 in order 2002 andS•iempas 3003and Computing Systems Iha ' 1 G AMunirlh GermanIy GENERAL SYSTEM LAYOUT the address of the next working storage location If a unit has to be connected to the working sto Lge for a transfer of data this unit conveys a request to the data control of the central unit Since the units of the Model-3003 work independently several of them may be in operation simultaneously and it may happen that several units initiate requests at the same instant In this case the requests conveyed by the various units are collected In a so-called re- The Siemens Model-3003 Data Processing System is suitable for a great variety of applications and meets many of the requirements imposed on a modern computer installation The system is composed of a number of units designed to operate independently and on a time-sharing basis It can be roughly subdivided into internal units and peripheral units The internal units include the central unit the arithmetic unit and the working storage unit The peripheral units consist of controls and depermit data to be stored or to be vices Lread inwhich and out r d quest register and served in order of priority Each unit is assigned a priority rating with respect to requests conveyed to the data control The priorities can be assigned to the units arbitrarily but the most favorable order of priorican be established by considering the specific setup of the data processing system and the application it is put to INTERNAL UNITS •ties Central Unit The flow of information throughout the Siemens Model-3003 Data Processing Syste'm proceeds under the control of the central unit The central unit supplies the instructions to be carried out to the arithmetic unit and the peripheral units and controls the exchange of data between the units mentioned and the working storage unit The central unit also features a data control regulating the flow of data and a program control for running the individual routines The request register is cyclically searched by a request identifier A successful search causes a connection to be established between the requesting unit and the working storage for the duration of one cycle having a length of 12 5 #sec This 12 5 lisec cycle accommodates the time for identifying the request the time for building up the connection between the respective unit and the working storage and the time for reading four characters into or out of the working storage which equals a maximum data flow rate of 320 000 characters per second Program Control-The program control of the central unit reads the instructions out of the Data Control-The data control regulates the data flow between the working storage and the other units In addition the data control furnishes the unit which was connected to the working storage during the preceding cycle with 10 working storage and distributes them fn tho units for which they are iant The instructions to be carried out are passed to the various units through program channels Up to 16 program channels can be connected with the program control one of which invariably serves for connecting the arithmetic unit 15 program channels are freely available for connecting peripheral units a C t aiii ltv ring opraua tion of the peripheral units Besides it is pos sible to provide for precedence handling of certain programs The coordination functlunn required for this purpose are accomplished by an executive program If the arithmetic unit is given an instruction which it finds to be wrong in format the program control receives an error signal which takes the form of an unconditional interrupt TThanks to this novel mode of operation of the central unit the Siemens Model-3003 Data odling te ispe Procesring Processing System is capable of handling several Input and output processes simultaneously with respect to each other but also with respect to the In addition the systeca ru internal several routine in endentior tde system can run several interdependent or independent routines on a time-sharing basis This leads to a high degree of efficiency in data processing and permits the operating speeds of all units of the system to be exploited to the maximum possible extent In transferring instructions the program control of the central unit remains linked with the corresponding units only for that period of time that in absolutely necessary The program control only initiates the programmed operations in the executing unit The operation which frequently is of much longer duration than the initiating function is executed by the respective unit on its own In the meantime the program control can serve other units thus enabling several units to work in parallel Shortly before the instruction last received by a unit has been executed the unit sends an interrupt request to the program control This enables the program control to supply new instructions to a unit while previous ones are still being executed These interrupts determine the program continuation The interrupts initiated by the units are read into a register of the program control the so-called program interrupt register As soon as an interrupt has arrived at the program interrupt register the current program is broken at the earliest possible moment Arithmetic Unit The arithmetic unit performs arithmetical and logical operations In the Model-3003 Data Processing System a distinction has to be drawn between operations with words of fixed length and operations with words of variable length To accomplish these operations the arithmetic unit is connected to the program and data control There are conditional and unconditional interrupts In instant only at an be broken to control program current where the program interprets an in- the case of operations with a fixed word length 24 bits the arithmetical operations are carried out on a fixed-point binary notation basis Besides performing arithmetical operations the unit is capable of carrying out a series of shift functions logical connectives forking struction after the execution of which the program may be interrupted An unconditional interrupt on the other hand causes the program to be broken in any case after the execution of theinstructions just being dealt with Scuted of fixed length When operations with words of variable length are performed the operands may cornprise an optional number of decimal digits letters or special characters with the word length being limited only by the capacity of the working storage This enables the available storage capacity to be utilized to the optimum extent Each discrete character in the working storage individually is addressable that is can be read or written The peripheral units report the completion of each operation through a conditional interrupt to the program control If several conditional Interrupts are stored they are obeyed in order of priority Each program channel which links the peripheral uni s with the program control can be assigned a -ertain priority Conditional iv terrupts entail as the current program permits conditional program breaks Information on whether a program may be interrupted is A mined from the so-called interrupt desigr •tor of the instructions to be exeThe programmer can mark the points where a program may be broken This provides By using instruction words of variable length it is possible over and above the performance of arithmetical operations to transfer character sequences within the working storage to compare two trains of characters 11 - -- - - -- - - peripheral units Each such unit is composed of a control and one or several data handling devicer Each peripheral uniR opertLes independently several input and output operations can be performed simultaneously with each other and with the internal processing routine For carrying out input and output operations the peripheral units concerned associate themselves directly with the working storage unit on the basis of a pre-established sorting sequence and to search a sequence of characters for one particular character Additions and subtractions are accomplished in the add-tostore logic that is an operand is replaced by the sum a b to a Working Storage Unit-The working storage unit encompasses a magnetic-core storage and the control circuitry required for storage operations Each peripheral unit is linked to the computer through a data channel and a program channel the former is a communication path between the working storage unit and the peripheral unit and the latter a communication path between the program control and the peripheral unit The working storage unit of the Siemens Model-3003 Data Processing System is in supply in three setups which differ only in storage capacity The capacity options are 16 384 32 768 and 65 536 characters a character is considered to be a figure a letter or a special symbol Each character is coded by six bits The peripheral units address their requests for transfer of data to the data control via the data channel Since the units are capable of working in parallel such requests for data may arrive from several peripheral units simultaneously They are then served in the order of priority the individual priority ratings are permanently assigned to the data channels and thus to the individual units The higher the input and output speed of a peripheral unit the higher must be the priority rating assigned to its regna q Each character is individually addressable but it is likewise possible to provide access to four characters in the working storage unit by one address It should be noted in this connection that to achieve a high operating speed the information flow from and to the peripheral units proceeds in blocks of four characters each i e four characters are transferred and stored simultaneously The Siemens Model-3003 Data Processing System can handle words of fixed and variable length The use of variable-length words facilitates operation in commercial applications while fixed-length words are better suited to the solution of engineering and scientific problems and to programming When a peripheral unit is connected to the data processor the respective data channel sho l d be accorded a priority rating consistent with the input and output speed of the peripheral unit concerned Every peripheral unit can pass a request to the program control which has the effect of a conditional interrupt of the program This provides for coordination between the operation of the central unit and that of the peripheral units in such a manner that no idle time occurs on any of the units Each fixed-length word in the Siemens 3003 system consists of 24 bits i e four characters This length is consistent with the length of the various working storage locations A fixedlength word can be intprpreted in the system as a binary-coded instruction word as a binary number with sign and as a binary bit pattern that is a 24-digit sequence of zeros and ones Some input and output units that can be linked to the Siemens 3003 Data Processing System are Paper tape input unit The length of a variable-length word is established either by a number-of-character signal or by a fixed end-of-word signal If the end-of-word signal mode is employed the word length or the number of characters is limited only by the capacity of the working storage If the number-of-character signal mode is used the variable word length is 63 characters or less Paper tape output unit Typewriter unit This unit consists of one to three typewriters and the associated controls and is connected via a data channel and a program channel The typewriter unit serves as the operator's position in the system One typewriter the so-called master typewriter is required in each case while one or two so-called secondary typewriters may be linked to the unit as optional adjuncts The PERIPHERAL UNITS The Siemens 3003 Data Processing System provides for the optional connection of up to 16 12 I secondarv tvnewritpr niv ' GA'• tU tuuiarui - -6 the data processing system to accomplish other functions for Instance the preparation of punched tape Either the keyboard or the tapetransmitter attachments fitted to the typewriters may be used for data input a record of the data being fed into the system is logged by the typewriter in either case The maximum input and output speed amounti to 10 characters per second The typewriters of the unit are capable of 100 percent simultaneous operation ano is conneched via a data channel and a program chaitnel The Siemens TM-2 magnetic tape drives are designed for a reading and writing speed of 46 000 characters per second but can optionally be adapted to a reading and writing speed of 30 000 characters per second The information density is 120 and 80 characters per centimeter respectively The data are organized on the magnetic tapes in blocks of variable length Each character is coded by six bits plus one parity-check bit the bits are arranged on the tape in the direction perpendicular to the feed direction The seven bits of a character are written or read simultaneously Card Reader Unit 088 Card Punch Unit 514 Printer Unit This unit consists of the Siemens high-speed printer and is connected via a data channel and a program channel The output speed of the Siemens high-speed printer varies between 12 5 lines per second with alphanumeric data output and 25 lines per second with purely numeric data output Each line has 132 printing positions Start and stop of the printing process are controlled only by the information handled and are not subject to a fixed cycle free-wheeling feature MANUAL CONTROL OF THE MENS MODEL DATA SIEMENS MODEL-3003 DATA PROCESSING SYSTEM The operator controls the Siemens Model3003 Data Processing System by raeans of the typewriter unit This unit as mentioned earlier iis provided with a master typewriter and may be augmented by one or two secondary The high-speed printer is designed to accommodate one or two paper forms at option It is thus capable of concurrently printing two documents which may differ in format and contents The paper feed function for the two tracks can be put under program control A distinction is made between the line feed function and the form feed function The latter proceeds under the control of a punched tape which is stepped in synchronism with the form to be printed typewriters The mastcr typewriter is in any case connected regardless of system setup The secondary typewriters are not necessarily set up in the same room as the data processing system thus permitting the latter tu bl controlled from a spatially separated location The secondary typewriters can be cut in for input to the system or they may be dotached for independent operation Operator control can be exercised from the typewriter keyboard and the tape-transmitter attachment All operating manipulations and manual interventions in the program are logged automatically Mangetic-Tape Unit The unit consists of one to eight Siemens TM-2 magnetic tape Table I SIEMENS DATA PROCESSING SYSTEMS CHARACTERISTICS Characteristics Monthly Rental Typical First Delivery Month and Year Processor Speed Complete add time in microseconds Storage cycle time in microseconds 12002 I J$003 Siemens a Siemens $1 3 9 00 b $10 250b 6 59 12 63 180 90 core 13 345c 23 000 drum 12 5 d Table I SIEMENS DATA PROCESSING SYSTEMS CHARACTERISTICS Continued Characteristics Iiemens 2002 5 $ieaeii 300 9 Internal Storage Capacity in words Type 1000-100 000 core 10 000 drum 16384-65536 core Logic Word size Instruction address Magnetic Tape Thousands of characters per second Buffering Maximum units attachable 12 decimals 1 1 alphanumeric characterf 1 - 2 30 or 461 Reading writing and computing can be performed simultaneously 30 or 468 Readingwriting a id computing can be performea simultaneously multiple simultaneous operations are possibleh 120 60 Random Access File Capacity Access time in milliseconds 25 8 millionsi 136 Peripheral Devices Cards per minute In Out Paper tape characters per second In Out Printer lines per minute Off-Line Equipment 650 100 650 100 200 60 750-150 0 J samek 400 60 750-I500J samem Other Features Program interrupt Index registers Indirect addressing Floating-point arithmetic Console typewriter 3 yes yes output yes input output Software Algebraic compiler Business compiler 1 62 n - 7 850 yes bSee Digital Computer Newsletter Apr 1959 Typical rental for nagnetic tape system CAdd time assumnes a five-character field di our characters are read or written in every cycle c Word size is 12 decimals plus sign £Variable -length instructions operate on variable length data fields moreover fixed-length instructions operate on Z4-bit words gMagnetic tapes are IBM compatible hUp to 15 channels for peripheral equipment may operate full simultaneously input and output iFor each disc file unit iJWith two independently controlled paper tracks kCard equipment may be used off-line mCard equipment and typewriter may be used off-line nALGOL oCOBOL 14 I S t dkrd ElMktrAI orrnz 4 Stuttgvrl krmalny lký Standard Elektrik Lorenz an ITT associate has delivered a test installation for online processing of cheques and money transfer orders in the German Post Cheque Service This installation is one of the steps in the automation efforts for this service The German Thmoved Post Cheque System corn- prises 13 Post Cheque Offices PCO in the main cities It is operated by the Deutche Bundespost German Federal Post in a similar but restricted mode as a bank institution mainly money transfer between any accounts at the same or a different PCO cash payment from an account to a private address and cash payment onto an account from any post office counter The total number of accounts is 2 000 000 in a single PCO 150 000 to 300 000 The average traffic in a PCO is 150 000 to 500 000 documents per day moving 30 000 to 100 000 accounts The daily routine work in a PCO has several firm restrictions in time All orders arriving by 10 a m and urgent orders until 1 p m have to be booked the same day A small number of orders from the cashierts desk in the office building have to be treated immediately When all accounting is finished account statements must be printed for all accounts They contain the mailing address of movements and the new balance These account statements and appropriate credit documeots must be mained to the holder Check lists must be printed and attached to those documents which have to be mailed to other CPO's for crediting or to local post offices for cash payment All outgoing mail shall reach the receivers customers or post offices early the next day so it has to leave the PCO by 6 p m for the night trains The on-line test installation at the PCO Nurnberg will be operative for 20 000 accounts during spring 1964 Weapons Research Establishment Ih'plrnent Xupp ly Ant ndia •'aIburty S Ioulh COMPUTING EQUIPMENT The Australian Weapons Research Establishment uses digital computing facilities to process trials data from the Woomera Guided Missile Range and for scientific and engineering computations which arise in the research work of the Establishment The present facilities consist of an IBN 7090 1401 combination see DCN July 1961 obtained from joint British-Australian financial resources The 7090 has been in use since February 1961 when it replaced WREDAC the Elliott 403 as the central processor in a magnetic tape oriented data processing system This fact and the requirement to provide a general cornputing facility for non-specialists led to a choice of equipment including a 32-K store two data channels eight 729 Model II tape units a card reader a card punch and a printer the last three being used on-line This represented the minimum selection of units for compatibility with pre-existing non-IBM ancillary equipment and for satisfactory operationwiththe FORTRAN and FAP coding languages under the FORTRAN i1 Monitor System The availability of the IBM 7090 and the ease of use of the FORTRAN coding language has led to a steady and rapid growth in the demand for general computing services on the 7090 additional to the predicted growth arising from the data processing needs of the large and more complex missile trials now current See Table I To meet this increasing demand equipment re-organizations and additions have been made from ti ne to time and the hours of operation have been extended to a regular two-shift day with extensions to three shifts when needed The equipment modifications have been designed to give all-tape operation of the IBM 7090 with the removal off-line of all functions except those essential to correct operation such as on-line prints of instructions to operators This has been effected by the addition of an IBM 1401 Model C3 together with a card reading and punching unit a fast printer and two tape units and by the removal of the on-line punch 721 The tape data transmission to and from the 7090 has also been speeded up by introduction of five additional 729 Model IV tape units The current tape distribution on the 7090 is channel B The two tapes normally attached to the can be cabled to the 7090 to give a total of 1401 13 W090-tapes if required fiv tfnme nn rhannol A 2nid six tanes on Based on the central 7090 1401 facility the remainder of a second generation data processing system is also nearing completion see below This has involved the design and construction of improved analogue-to-digital converters and digital-to-digital format converters These are expected to have a capacity 10 times that of the valve machines they replace ard also have greater control flexibility They will enable more sophisticated programming techniques on the 7090 such as automatic recognition of the source of data and the type of processing required and will record additional data quantities which will assist in the automatic detection and correction of errors The standard operating mode of the IBM 7090 is with version 2 of the FORTRAN Monitor modified for local conditions Fur instance two major features of trials data processing work are the number of repeated uses of a programme which may be required in the composition of a single monitor run and the generation of large amounts of tape output which is destined for reInput to the 7090 for further processing Normal FORTRAN Monitor procedure in the first case is to provide a copy of the programme deck with each data deck This requires multiple copies of such programme decks and repeated complete reloadings of the same programme both at the card-to-tape transcription stage on the 1401 and in the tape to store transfcrs on the 7090 This duplication has been eliminated by incorporating a save procedure in the monitor whereby at the end of each job the programme is saved until the nature of the next job has been established This enables a programme restart witho ut further loading when appropriate and permits operators to stack as many data decks as are appropriate behind each programme deck when assembling monitor runs The tape output and re-input problems are handled by a combination of programme conventions special routines and monitor modificatiofis All data for long term retention or subsequent re-input isi output onto a standare tape A6 in binary form and each record Is automatically provided with a unique refer- sequential numbering from job to job and contains provision for continuing on to a new spool These facilities enable the 7090 to continue with a single primary output tape for as long as is operationally convenient The modifications to the monitor described with others have proved an efficient solution to some of the operating problems that arise with a variable job mixture often containing many short runs and a complicated tape input situation A further major operating improvement is expected with the fitting of manual tape positioning controls to the tape units used for re-input These will enable operators to position tapes approximately at load time and will substantially reduce the large time losses which accumulate when many jobs involve preliminary spacing over large lengths of tape under programme control before reaching the data required It is planned to combine this present manner of operation with the new facilities offered by IBSYS but a basic problem is achieving compatibility between the specialised tape input-output system and the generalised faciities of IBSYS It is hoped to implement a solution requiring the residence of IBSYS and the existing monitor on the same system tape with a free interchange between the two via control cards Operation of the IBM 7090 is on a closed shop basis Access to the machine is restricted to the operating staff except for any person whose presence may be desirable to derive full benefits from a programme run All input is submitted to a computing office with standard documentation covering the operations required and accounting information After logging the Job input received at the computing office is sent to the machine room where monitor decks nre composed on the basis of job priorities and estimated execution times These decks are loaded onto a peripheral input tape via the IBM 1401 to await the availability of the 7090 The 1401 Is in continuous operation with a multiple utility programme which permits concurrent tape-to-card or printer and card-to-tape operations For a standard production job of normal priority the interval between submission to the computing office and the availability there of the output is approximately 5 hours There is a provision rarely exercised for an over-riding ence giving the spool number and the sequential position of the record on the spool All subsequent references to data on that tape use this code and when re-input to the 7090 is required this code provides an easily programmable positioning the The code system values are meansasof input tape data for the ifjob given priority which gives immediate access to the 7090 Also jobs of low priority may be delayed i 'il higher priorities have been satisfied Ithough delays of more than 1 day are uncommon The collection of the output from the computing of the customer who office is telephone the responsibility notification of its availability is given automatically ensures the carry over of output It should be mentioned here that Establishment 16I users are spread in Individual buildings over and may also undertake the programming of an area of several square miles nroblpmn nf Im The programming organization for the IBM 7090 fails into two distinct divisions First there is a group of approximately 12 mathematician-programmers who are engaged on major data processing problems and on sy- terns type work They are responsible for programmes which use some 45 percent of the available time at present and their duties may extend from problem analysis and the developmeat of numerical methods to handling routine queries This group provides the main body of programming expertise in the Establishment veniently handled by non-specialists The second division of programmers is composed of all others with a problem to run on the 7090 These users are responsible for their own programming usually in the FORTRAN language courses in elementary programming are held from time to time to assist them The services of the specialist programmers are also available to these users on a consultative basis This sysý em functions satisfactorily for general problem solving on the computer and calls for assistp ice from the specialists are gradually decreasing in number with the spread of programming knowledge and experience nh-j- ' h- •• t - Table I WEAPONS RESEARCH ESTABLISHMENT COMPUTER USAGE 6-Month Total On Operatings Period Time Ratio Ending Hours 3 W R E External June 1961 383 98 7 95 0 5 0 Dec 1961 641 97 0 89 7 10 3 June 1962 1222 96 2 85 7 14 3 Dec 1962 1568 98 3 92 1 7 9 June 1963 1 478 b 95 5 89 6 10 4 Dec 1963 2094 97 2 86 9 13 1 Percentage Distribution of Useful time Sa perating Ratio 100 Total scheduled on time -- time lost in unscheduled maintenance and power failures Total scheduled on time bIBM 1401 installed November 1962 THE MARK II DATA CONVERSION SYSTEM loads from extended range instrumentation system and to utilise fully the available input data rate of the 7090 a new converter system has been designed and manufactured at W R E New features include faster conversion rates the facility for recording identification data extensive checking facilities and flexibility in construction to allow for expansion Since 1956 an automatic data conversion system at W R E has processed range instrumentation data which are recorded at Woomera on magnetic tapes termed Primary Records A Primary Record is replayed into the conversion system at the Salisbury laboratories to make a further magnetic record the Secondary Record of the now digitally encoded data Until 2 years ago processing of the data was performed by the WREDAC computer for which the system was tailored but which has now been replaced by an IBM 7090 and an IBM 1401 This system has been handling telemetered data radio-Doppler data and AN FPS16 radar data In order both to keep pace with increasing peak f System Components Because of the diverse data processing operations performed the system is functionally and physically broken down into a number of discrete units which are interconnected as shown in Fig 1 17 -d--- - SUBMINIATURE CONTROL FLOW OUTPUT CONVERSION INPUT SECONDARY TLMTYCONTROL ESTAPE RIA TA PRIMRY APE TYPEWRITERAN ITYERTEiN RADA CONVERTER Figure 1 ISCNAYTP W R E Mk II Data Conversion System Firstly there is a particular unit for reproducing and converting the signals from each of the primary instrumentation systems viz Telemetry Doppler and Radar These units produce encoded data in a common character format 6 bits in parallel at a peak rate of 166 Primary Record while converting and recording either Doppler or Radar data core Buffer Store accepts data from any one converter at a time for blocking into discrete records to make the Secondary Record to the IBM specification at 41 6 K characters per second i e 555 bits per inch recorded at 75 inches per second Record consists of a frequency modulated subcarrier bearing 23 variables and a synchrontsing signal all time-multip oxed The subearrier signal Is demodulated and a strobe generator produces channel strobe pulses which are the common pulses for an analogue-to-digital converter The recovered signal is passed through an optimised filter before each channel is digitised to 10-bit precision One time sample per frame is generated from a recorded clock signal and added to the other variables before the data pass to the Buffer Store The converter will handle sampling rates up to 12 K per second producing 27 K characters per second which allows most telemetered data to be converted without time expansion Telemetry Converter Typically telemetered data on the Primary K characters per second Then a maguetic Overall control is achieved by a Control Unit which automatically controls both the conversion sequence from the Primary Record to the Secondary Record and the Secondary Record data-check sequence which provides a data printout on an electric typewriter An economy in magnetic core storage control circuitry and digital tape units is achieved by time-sharing these among a number of primary-data converters through the System Switch shown in Fig 1 In principle any number of primary-data converters may be accommodated by the one complex of Control Unit and the like To take care of peak loads however a second system of Control Store and so on is Doppler Converter After the sinusoidal Doppler signals are recovered from frequency modulated carriers on the Primary Record they are passed through narrow band tracking filters to improve signal- planned as shown in Fig 1 Each converter may to-noise ratio These signals are measured over regular but selectable time intervals be completely isolated from the Buffer Store and Control Unit through the System Switch so against a coded clock track on the primary that it is possible to assess say a Telemetry 18 I i - Record Up to seven such signals varying from 0-20maximum Kc may besampling measured At the ratesimultaneously of 100 per second console while those pertaining to control functions particular control data converter readthe from in thea converter switches areWhen 5400 characters per second are generated Identification File is written a printout is obtained from the tape through the electric typewriter so that the operator can check not only that the data is correctly written but that the controls are set according to the instruction r' lct Alternatively in special cases the Identification data may be inserted from a paper tape through a tape reader attached to the typewriter Radar Converter The radar outputs from shaft encoders are recorded on the Primary Record in a digital format differing from the IBM tape format Consequently only a digital format conversion is required in this case data rates allowing a time compression by a factor of four during conversion In fact this converter is being designed to handle a wide range of digital formats in an effort to cope with the increasing number of instruments which produce their output in digital form Project Status At the present time a Telemetry Converter a Doppler Converter Buffer Store Control Unit and peripherals have been installed and are being commissioned as a system Buffer Store The Buffer Store is a magnetic matrix core store with a capacity of 2048 seven-bit characters Locations can only be addressed sequentially both for writing and reading transfers and these are destructive There are two sets of address registers one for reading and one for writing so that a complete and regular sequence may be interleaved with the intermittent writing sequence The period for either writing or reading is 6pacec and three writing transfers may be interleaved between two consecutive reading transfers which are separated by 24 usec for the 41 6-K-character per second tape rate Data is stored in the character conflguration of seven bits in parallel six for data and one for parity THE W R E FLIGHT SAFETY SYSTEM Like most missile test centres the Weapone Research Establishment Range at Woomera operates within strictly defined boundaries and means must be provided to ensure that rockets and their debris fall within these boundaries The problem is particularly critical in the case of long range ballistic missiles because the impact point of these missiles Is sensitive to their velocity at the instant their engines cease to thrust The general solution to this problem involves tracking equipment to measure the present position of the missile and an on-line computer to accept this data and solve the ballistic equations so as to predict where the missile would land if thrust ceased at any instant The coordinates of these predicted impact points will be displayed to the Range Safety Officer and if they approach the range boundaries the latter will use a radio command link to force engine cut-off and thus confine the impact In practice the hardware required to provide the solution may take various forms according to the missile trajectory In fact in the W R E System three overlapping phases are used Identification Data In order to facilitate the computer programming and tape search tasks each Data File on a Secondary Record is preceded by an Identification Data File of 84 characters Of these the first 42 characters are reserved for parameters such as Reel number Date of Creation and Time for Retention and so forth which are standard for the data processing system while the remainder of the file is devoted to parameters concerned with the data conversion process These range from identifying codes for a particular instrument through elapsed time codes which define the conversion times to the bandwidth of analogue signal filters The data are inserted by an automatic sequence which gathers the codes from a number of sources Infrequently changed variables are obtained from coded switches located on the 1 Launch to 10 000 feet altitude Skyscreens using pre-computed boundaries and a voice link to the Safety Officer 2 3000 - A5 000 feet altitude Optical tracking instruments feed missile position to analogue impact predictors with plotting table display of impact points 19 I 3 50 000 feet to end of powered flight Two AN FPS16 radars feed digital missile position data to a digital computer The predicted iampact points are then converted to analogue form and displayed to the Safety Officer on a plotting table The Digital Impact Predictor DI The basic philosophy of the system and much of the equipment involved is similar to that of other ranges for example Cape Kennedy but two of the major components may be of interest to readers oi the Newsletter because they were designed and built at W R E 'l hese are the digital data links which transmit data from the radars to the digital computer and the digital computer itself Mode Parallel binary Word length 31 Litse sign Order code Single address 2 instructions per word repertoire of 20 instructions Store 4096 words in magnetic cores cycle time 5 4 ýLsec The Digital Data Links Clock rate 5 Mc The two AN FPSi6 radars are approximately 30 and 120 miles from the computer site respectively Bell J211 carrier systems are available for communication between these points The digital output from the radar is serial at a rate of 40 jamples per second with each sample consisting of 20 bits of range 17 bits of elevation angle and 17 bits of azimuth angle For the sake of standardisation the data link accepts parallel digits at the sender and pioduces parallel digits at the receiver so that a buffer is required between the radar output and the data link output Duration of elementary operations excluding the time to bring down the instruction The digital impact predictor is a high speed transistorised general purpose computer with input registers designed to match the receivers of the data links described above A brief specificatior of the computer is as follows Add subtract 5 6 Asec Multiply 49 4 Aisec average Divide 69 8 Asec Extract square root 70 gsec average The link uses four channels of the J2 systern with digits transmitted in each channel at a rate of 1200 bauds Three channels are used for range elevation and azimuth data respectively with 10 bits per channel per sample providing a synchronising code A majority vote at the receivers over the three synchronising codes provides single error correction on synch The fourth channel contains 18 redundant digits which constitute a Hamming code -or single error correction and double error detection over the radar parameter digits There are a number of spare digits in the format some of which have been used to indicate various radar operating conditions Input Paper tape reader • 50 characters per second 7 registers for on-line digital data Output Paper tape punch 50 characters per second 6 registers for on-line digital data Tracking data from both radars are fed to the computer simultaneously and the program selects that radars with the higher signal-tonoise ratio provided that its lock-on indication is set The computer output consists of x and y impact co-ordinates x y and z present position co-ordinates for acquisitioi purposes and various system status digits All inputs and outputs from the DIP are recorded for postflight analysis and to provide realistic signals for personnel training purposes The modulation scheme used in the data links is frequency shift keying with 2 cycles of a 2400-cps waveform representing 1 ' and one cycle of a 120u- -s waveform representing 0 The receiver uses an autocorrelation detector The entire equipment is transistorised and some 12 terminals at various stations on the Range have been in operation for about 3 years with a minimum of mainienance troubles The double error rate is about 1 in 106 bits ACKNOWLEDGMENT The permission of the Chief Scientist Australian Department of Supply to publish this information is acknowledged 20 Medical Research use of Computer S rho We 4- • N• 61#40 f Vrierre RiHea'rolh I rl A new medical device is being proposed at When the pod reaches its target it should the department of electronics of the Weizmann be able to perform different tasks This may Institute be by direct mechanical or by the application of drugs or other action chemicals which one It has been kihown in animal experiments that a small magnet called pod can be hiserted into blood vessels urethra and other tubes and can be guided by external magnetic fields into areas of the body to which direct access is impossible or intalls difficult surgery Magnetic iields can perform the physical guidance of the pod but the necessary adjustment and variation of these fields during the operation will probably require the use of computing devices in many of its applications might want to release for therapeutic diag nostic or research purposes or it can be used as a source of radiation or heat So far different devices of this type have been designed and experiments were performed on models of human bluod vessels as well as on live dogs System engineering has startod on the guiding of the device Information on the device was published in a lecture by E H Frei and S Leibinzohn and on its use in Cardiology by N Neuield E H Frei and S Leibinzohn at the 16th Annual Conference Engineering in Medicine and Biology The release of drugs in situ could obviate side effects of drugs to the rest of the human body thus allowing the use of drugs which would otherwise be severly restricted and enabling the application of much higher concentration in any restricted area 21 Miscellaneous IBM 1401 as a Law Enforcement Aid Detroit Miridgan A high-speed computer will help the Detroit Police Department combat crime by scientifically pinpointing crime patterns and areas of high crime potential in the city The Department has been making use of conventional punched card equipnment since 1920 These machines however have neither the speed nor capacity to handle the advanced applicatiors to be run on the 1401 system With advance information based on rapid analysis of crime reports the Department will be able to assign members of the police force to probable trouble spots before the trouble occurs This will be a major step forward in the important area of crime prevention CURRENT-WORKING PROGRAMS NOW IN USE 1 By upw-ting the offense report files daily the computer will weigh crime reports according to a pre-established p lan that takes into account the work load and specific crime patterns Thinl operation would provide a continuing analysis of the need for police throughout the city A rapid analysis of these reports would show areas in the city where certain types of offenses are exceptionally high or low Accumulative semi-munthly or weekly crime figures would permit sý Iective use of personnel It was recently announced that an IBM 1401 data processing system has been installed as part of an accelerated program to make the city's law enforcement procedures the best in the county In addition to daily re -w of crime reports the computer will be us _i to store and process the Department's many other active record files including arrest reports and dispositions clearance and recovery reports traffic tickets pawnshop records gun and bicycle registration records personnel records and so forth 2 Information regarding methods employed in committing crimes Modus Opcrazid will be analyzed by the computer to assa h'p Department in the apprehension of •r w The availability of electronic equipment for developing vital information will be a great asset to the Department Because of the immediate use in the field and the computer's tremendous facility for producing vital statistical reports greater achievement in the apprehension of the criminal and more effective prevention of crime can be expected The 1401 will provide up-to-the-minute information on the entire file of offense and arrest records thereby allowing more efficient planning of work load and assignments 3 Traffic tickets will b ' tern along with traffic accidei correlation between enforceme'- accident experience • mew sysi ow a n - %tiesand - 4 Personnel records no'w being printed from punched cards can be automatically prepared on the 1401's high-speed printer 5 Prepare monthly and special reports for the Women's Division Accident Prevention Youth and other Bureaus The new IBM system consisting of eight separate machines is installed in a remodeled section of the Police Headquarters building Detroit's Police Department is among the first to install a computer of this type PROPOSED FUTURE USES 1 Pawnshop records stolen property records gun registration files and stolen-auto files could all be rapidly inspected by the computer The Police Department has becn preparing for this computer since October 1962 at which time several members of the Department began training a 1401 computer at IBM's Detroit EducationonCenter 2 Officer activity reports could be punched card form for rapid analysis by put the in 22 t computer There would be too many reports to tion of offenses and calls for service and could handle manually in an organliatinn am large as the Detroit Police Department be used to show the actual time officers spent on the call 3 Radio assignment records handled by the computer would provide a close check on manpower distribution technique s could provide accurate time data with regard to distribu- 4 Latent print obtained at the scene of a crime could be searched rapidly against a master file of known criminal prints Electroic Photo Composition System 4 Hi LiA Company Chicago -IN Windt pk The vast amount of electr nic printing lowledge A B Dick Company aas'gained with ilu experience in address-label systems page printing systems and facsimile systems is now beirn applied to the development of a computercomiatible fully electronic photo composition system This system which will be one of the most sophisticated combinations of the two arts of printing and electronics may well be a revolutionary factor in graphic arts printing production of a printable plate but will provide significant increases in accuracy and quality of printing plus offering major reduction in proofreading time Elements of the system are a recording control unit and an automatic recording unit The control device will accept fully edited seven-channel pulse-coded information either directly from the computer or from a tape storage unit adapted to handle and read computer prepared magnetic tapes Input could also come from perforated paper tape using computer or teletype system punch coding With this system all the speed-reducing mechanical steps of type composition are removed This means the development will go one step beyond recent efforts to link data processing equipment with automated typesetting machines Efforts in the mechanical area have produced equipment that will convert copy to type at speeds up to 12 characters per second Mechanical optical composition devices again offer speeds of only 10 characters per second The control unit includes the circuits in the electronic elements necessary for controlling the timing and flow of input information checking the accuracy of the information re-reading in the event of a detected error and delivering the checked information to the recorder unit Delivered information will define type face and size the specific characters and symbols to be printed line composition and word and line spacing With fully electronic systems such as A B Dick Company's Electronic Photo Composition System complete advantage can be taken of medium scale computer speeds in the range of 30 000 characters per second The basic considerations being followed in developing an electronic photo composer are to produce a unit that converts information from machine or coded language into alphanumeric light patterns on a high revolution cathode ray tube The light patterns have the characteristics of graphic arts printing and are reproduced on an im4ging medium such as a photo-sensitive film or paper suitable for making printing plates Present economies desired in this system necessitate holding the speed in the area of 1500 to 2000 characters per second but maximum use of computer speeds is possible with the same principles The recorder electronically processes and photo-composes the delivered information A character generator converts the original input to a video type signal This signal is used to display the information in the desired format on the face plate of a high resolution cathode ray tube An automatic camera then picks up the images and transfers them onto a photosensitive medium The final output of the recorder is an exposed but unprocessed photographic film or photo-sensitive paper A B Dick Company's recent inroads the field of electronics represents a moderIA day extension of its mechanical and chemical duplicating processes The Videograph division is emblematic of a vast field of electronic data presentation systems that are currently This type of system not only reduces the cycle time between information input and the 9' b 23 or are under development for future availability The Company feels that within those systems may well rest the principles which will give and copying equipment that will be required to meet the complex communications needs of the future PLATO II and III 11mnverdt V ol Whlimi Introduction section Programmed Instruction for Student Nurses The purpose of the PLATO project see DCN October 1961 and July 1962 is to develop an automatic teaching system for tutoring simultaneously a large number of students in a variety of subjects The central control element of the teaching system is a general purpose digital computer The PLATO system differs from most teaching systems in that a single highspeed digital computer is used to control all student stations Thus it can bring to bear the power of a large digital computer in teaching each student REPLAB also has value as a diagnostic instrument for the assessing of inquiry skills and strategies It is for this purpose that it was utilized as part of an Inquiry Training program during July and August Fourteen children who had Just completed the sixth grade were given a 6-week Inquiry Training program Half of these were tested before the program on PLATOREPLAB bi-metal strip physics experiment and the entire group was tested at the end Through the use of a special analysis of the students' records written for this REPLAB program the strategies of the children tested were readily displayed and analyzed Individual differences among the subjects were cl arly discernible and the effects of the training program on the inquiry skills of the children could be detected Inquiry Training The PLATO-Inquiry Training Program REPLAB-Responsive Environment Programmed Laboratory described in the progress reports 1 2 presents the pupil with a concrete event on motion pictures film using equipment auxiliary to the PLATO student station A program in the PLATO laboratory mode then presents to the pupil a series of questions which he has to answer about the event The questions vary from questions about what was In the film and what happened to questions which are more theoretical and pertain to why the event took place The pupil at all times has the choice of trying to answer the questions or trying to gather additional information The basic choices provided in the PLATO laboratory are to answer questions see film again check properties check conditions or experiment Proof Lab The program for PLATO LAB called Proof is nearing completion Three lessons written in two simplified versions offtepo the prowitni gram have wbeenipiidvrin tried out with ninth-grade students and with staff members of the UICSM mathematics projects With these versions of the program it is possible for students to construct proofs of theorems in algebra on the blackboard with the computer checking each key pressed for violations in logic such as improper omission of grouping symbols completing a substitution in a generalization which does not connect with previous line failing to copy or replace all characters on a line before advancing to the next line and so on Parts of the program which remain unfinished include subroutines for formation of a summary statement when called for and for storing theorems the student has already proved so that he can call on them if needed in a later proof While PLATO-REPLAB was designed principally to help pupils learn more about the inquiry process its use in this respect will be limited untfl more problems have been programmed for this purpose At present only two problems have been adapted for this purpose one It physics and one in nursing See 1 University of Illinois Coordinated Science Laboratory Progress Report for Dec 196Z Jan and Ffeb 1963 5 3 University of Illinois Coordinated Science Laboratory Progress Report for Mar Apr Programmed Instruction for Student Nurses Use of the PLATO laboratory mode for and May 1963 5 2 5 4 teaching clinical nursing by inquiry method was 24 II Sand Srelating i Sscores described in P f 2 Pre- and poet-tests along disLoveries were accompanied by significantly with a test to determine cognitive style were given to the Retdents Ar attempt to dctcrmine any gross differences in material learned by the PLA-rO group and the non-PLATO group was done using T-score comparisons on their prepost-test The correlation coefficients the post-test scores cognitive style scores number of experiments and other systern variables have been calculated and will be available in a forthcoming report A T-score of 0 1 for 11 degrees of freedom showed no significant difference between the two groups on their pre-test scores A similar calculation on the poet-test scores however showed a Tscore of 1 9 which is significant at the 10percent level A correlation coefficient of 0 85 was found relating the number of experiments performed by the students and their post-test while a negative correlation coefficient of 0 75 was found relating the number of incorrect answers to the post-test scores High correlation was found relating an inferential cognitive style and a good performance on the system For example the correlation coefficients with inferential cognitive style were post-test 0 58 number of experiments performed 0 72 and the number of times conditions were checked 0 921 Although the small size of the group prohibits conclusive findings it appears that those students who inquired the most learned the most All but one post-test score of the students in the PLATO group was equal to or greater than the highest post-test score of the other group higher heart rates in five sessions three of these being significant at the 1-percent level 2 re-discoveries were accompanied by significantly higher heart rates in two sessions and 3 wrong discovery was accompanied by significantly higher heart rates in five lessons in three cases the difference being significant at the 5-percent level Physiological Correlates of Mathematical Discovery In a study exploring possible physiological correlates of discovery heart rate was recorded while subjects worked through a PLATO II instructional program called CHAOS that was designed to induce discoveries of formulae needed to solve the criterion problems A statistical analysis of the data was performed Susing Duncan's new method for multi-group comparisons For the analysis each session was divided into from 40 to 80 phases classifled as to the type of problem solving activity the student was performing 1 first-time discoveries 2 re-discoveries 3 wrong discoveries 4 routine calculation 5 unknown tctivity or 6 resting before or after a session j Out of 15 sessions employing 8 different students 8 sessions showed significantly higher heart rates during one or more of the discovery phase types than during routine calculation where statistical significance was defined at the 10 percent level The breakdown by types of discovery phases is as follows 1 First time S 25 The largest obstacle to demonstration of a physiological correlate of discovery appears to be that of designing an instructional program in which the discoveries are more clearly delineated and are more striking in the nature of the insight produced Experiments with phase-type definitions show that the level of significance is extremely sensitive to change in definition R A Avner of this laboratory has experimented with a timed program that reduces chance for individual differences in responses to discovery In the program the numerical patterns that the subjects had to recognize were much simpler than those used in the aforementioned program Data were collected for 17 subjects The results of preliminary analyses are consonant with the hypothesis that there is an increase in heart rate accompanying initial pattern recognition PLATO III Programming During the last quarter the input-output routines for the PLATO III program for use with the new PLATO III equipment were prepared These routines allow the CDC 1604 to inject student requests and student answers for processing by the main PLATO III program and to control the central slide selector and individual student storage tubes More specifically the main input routine makes use of the interrupt feature of the CDC 1604 When a student request is transmitted from his keyset to the central computer the program is interrupted and the request and student identification stored in a temporary file in the core memory of the computer After the computer has resumed and finished its present business it returns to process the requests in this file sequentially The output routines included routines to command the central slide selector to display a given slide to a given student to write the results of a computer judging routine OK or NO on a given student's storage tube to diaplay a student's answer to a question to erase a student answer and so forth The availability of the input-output routines together with the main routine previously finishod represents the essential completion of F p the PLATO III progritm A few peripheral programs are still being written The most inportant of these are programs for recording the progress of a student during a lesson as well as data processing routines for subsequent analysis and presentation of these data It is expected that these routines will be finished during the next quarter bility may be achieved than that provided by the existing deflection circuitry X-Y Character and Selective Erase Circuitry-Performance evaluation of X-Y character and selective erase digital-analog converter circuitry with respect to conversion precision was undertaken during the past quarter Results show that successive increment variations and output linearity are well within the design objectives of 12 and 0 4 percent respectively In the meantime code checking of the program with the equipment has begun Several minor errors and misunderstandings between programmers and equipment designers were uncovered and corrected It is expected that the remaining ailments of the system will be found and treated within the next few weeks Short and long term drift evaluation of the above have been cursory due to lack of environmental facilities Early results of operation of the above in the PLATO HI system environment however suggest adequate short-term drift stability Finally demonstration lesson material for displaying the main features of PLATO III Is being considered discussed and written In this connection it should be recalled that the main new features of PLATO M vis-a-vis PLATO II are 1 the ability of the program to insert supplementary material and exercises as a function of its evaluation of the student's performance and 2 the possibility of multiple help sequences for each question-the one entered depending on the computer's diagnosis of the student's error Individual Student Equipment Storage Tube Module--Deflection signal cross-talk has been reduced to a satisfactory small value through the redesign of line-driver circuitry and the use of new low-capacitance reed relay circuitry The existing two operational prototype modules are being modified to include the new circuitry Development of transistor deflection circuitry which holds the promise of greater efficiency than that presently realized will continue during the coming quarter I LATO HI System Equipment All of the PLATO III equipment necessary for the operation of two student stations although only one of the two slide scanners is presently installed has undergone preliminary testing Testing has included limited operation with the portions of the PLATO IU input-output program completed for the CDC 1604 as well as with the other input-output routines Tests with the CDC 1604 indicate satisfactory operation of the storage tube control logic Only two sets of the storage tube control logic circuitry have been completed thus far Keysets-Operation of the two operational keyboards and the associated input circuitry with the CDC 1604 computer has proved satisfactory during preliminary testing Equipment Shared by All Students Input-Output Interface-This equipment has been subjected to the testing mentioned above with satisfactory results Additional circuitry needed for the operation of four more student stations has been completed but not tested Video Switches-The two completed video switches have been tested with the one slide scanner in operation with the PLATO III equipment Preliminary testing indicates satisfactory operation The video switch package however is being redesigned mechanically to allow greater ease of maintenance as well as more compact packaging Slide Scanner-Deflection circuitry for the two presently operational slide scanners is being developed in order that greater drift sta- Prtject MAC-Goals and Status Cme bridge Al sct rh nneri The Department of the Navy's Office of Naval Research on behalf of the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Department of Defense has awarded a contract of $2 220 000 to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for initiation of a major national program of re26 1 search on advanced computer systems and their exploitation 5 Input-output equipment for close mancomputer intermetinn The research will be carried out at M I T under the project name MAC an acronym derived from two titles Machine-Aided Cognition expressing the broad project objective and Multiple-Access computer describing its major tool This project directed by Professor Robert M Fano Ford Professor of Engineering is intended to be the initial phase of a national effort that is expected to involve an increasing number of universities and research centers 6 On-line computation in the physical sciences life-sciences and social sciences 7 Computer-directed instruction 8 Heuristic programming 9 Powerful cognitive programs 10 Computer assistance in thinking problem solving and decision making An essential part of the MAC project will be the evolutionary development of a large computer system that will be easily and independently accessible to a large number of people and truly responsive to their individual needs An equally essential part of MAC will be the investigation of new ways in which cornputers can aid people in their creative work whether it be research engineering design management or education The emphasis will be on placing the logical power of computers at the service of people where when and in the amount wanted somewhat in the same manner as electrical power is presently distributed 11 Operation of time-sharing systems 12 Management information and decision systems 13 Symbolic processes 14 Machine structures memory organization and order codes 15 Interrelations between information proceasing and communications Facilities Objectives Physically Project MAC is located adjacent to the M I T campus in the Technology Square office complex It occupies the eighth and ninth floors of the Beta Building 545 Technology Square Cambridge Mass 02139 The evolutionary development of a large time-shared computer system is only one of MACIs tasks The broad Project objective is to develop application of time sharing through a major experimental effort involving a wide spectrum of uses operating with whatever timeshared computer facility that may be currently available Because the Computation Center is already heavily loaded it cannot supply the computer time required by MAC Furthermore experimentation with systems would be drastically limited by the obligation of the Center to provide continuous service to a large number of users Thus the Project has acquired a time-shared computer system to meet its special needs The scope of the user-oriented effort is suggested by the following extract from the Project work stat ment Project MAC will advance to the greatest degree possible the following areas contributory to the development and use of time sharing and other advanced computer systems In setting up its initial computer facility MAC has taken advantage of the time-sharing experience of the M I T Computation Center The Center which first ran time-sharing on a 704 in 1960 has evolved a machine configuration and a supervisory system which bopied by MAC will allow the Project to begin its experimental work with an immediately operational facility 1 Organization and design of time sharing systems executive pi ograms monitor programs scheduling programs and utility programs 3 Computer-Aided Design MAC's large-scale computer is an augmented IBM 7094 It has been modified to operate with two banks of 32-K core memory and it has six data channels Modifications in addition to the two-bank core memory includc hard- 2 Programming languages and programming systems 4 Public and authorized use of computer procedures and information files 27 ware facilities for relocation and memory protecioii Thebe featureb together with an interrupt clock and a special operating mode in which input-output operations and certain other instructions result in traps were necessary to assure successful operation of independent programs coexisting in core Two basic motivations for adding the seecore Tnd bank which is reserved for the su- The M I T Electrical Engineering Department's PDP-I which is itself time shared will also participate possibly by maintaining several display and typewriter terminals pervisor are 1 to avoid imposing severe memory restrictions on uaers because of the large supervisor and 2 to permit use of existing programs e g FAP which require all or most of core CTSS I This Is an evolving program whose first public demonstration took place in 1961 CTSS includes executive scheduling debugging assembler compiler and input output facilities The programming languages now or soon to be available in CTSS are FORTRAN FAP MAD COMIT and LISP Others are planned for future n c l u si o n -A The Compatible Time-Sharing System MAC's initial operating system will be the M I T Compatible Time-Sharing System Tmhm ee r oTgra ns mi s i o C on r oli 7750 is a stored-program computer which serves as the interface between a 7094 data channel and up to 112 telegraph-rate 100 or so bits see terminal devices Alternatively higher-rate terminals e g 1200 bits sec may be traded for groups of low-rate lines The 7750 is compatible with Bell System data sets In a typical session at a terminal a user might first log in giving his identification He might then type in a subroutine using the MAD language He could cI'ub tra printout of his input Edit it to correct errors and then call for a MAD compilation The resulting binary program possibly with others previously compiled could be loaded and run and results or post-mortem data obtained If necessary the contents of registers may be examined corrections made to the source program recompilation accomplished and then another run would be made and so on To terminate the session the user would log out at this time he would receive from the supervisor accounting data indieating how much actual computer time he had ied The initial 7750 configuration at Project MAC will be three 1200-bit terminals 24 terminals for Model 35 Teletypes and 28terminals for IBM 1050 Selectric typewriter stalions all interconnected through a dial network The Computation Center's 7750 will be identical except the number of Teletype terminals will be 16 In the near future connections to other services such as TWX TWX-prime and Telex will be added An arrangement to allow the computer to initiate calls will be an early addition CTSS allows a conventional batch-processing load to be operated as background Any computer capacity not demanded by time-sharing users is absorbed by the background Present plans call for the 1200-bit lines to be used through data sets for intercommunicalion between the MAC and Computation Center 7094's and also as one means of connecting the 7094 to some of the other computers at M I T Two PDP-I's and a 1620 will be fitted for this connection As the experimental program develops it is doubtless that other uses will arise Summer Study Project MAC cond' cted a 6-week Summer Study at M I T in July and August 1963 at which over 100 participants drawn from acadenmlc institutions and governmental and industrial laboratories met to consider various aspeets of the MAC effort Machine structures languages and compilers and terminal equipment and their uses were considered at length MAC plans to install a 16-K PDP-1 with Microtapes high-speed channel and scope display with character generator and light pen This machine is one of those mentioned above which will be adapted for 1200-bit-per-second connection to the 7750 For another class of experiments the same machine will be connected at a much higher rate through the PDP-I high-speed channel to the 7094 direct-data connection The basic role of the MAC PDP-I is that of an extremnly flexible high quality i e high data-rate terminal for man-machine interaction I As a working demonstration for the Study the M I T Computation Center provided some IA programmer's manual for CTSS has been published Corbuto ct al The Compatible 28 Time-Sharing System A Programmer's Guide 2t8heM I T Press Cambridge 1963 I I 30 hours per week of time-shared operation of its 7090 using Teletype terminals located 'n the participants' offices Participants coded debugged and ran programs simultaneously with the normal ComputationCenter time-sharing load and batch-processing background i Aside from its demonstration value this operation represented a valuable operational test of the 21-terminal version of the Center's Compatible Time-Sharing System Philosophy System Development Corporation which is also conducting a large time-sharing project made their time-shared computer located in Santa Monica California available via the Bell System TWX Teletypewriter Exchange network By use of a TWX terminal installed at Project MAC programs were written debugged and operated on the Santa Monica computer an while the computer was working simultaneously with other time-sharing users located in Santa Monica logue on the solution of a problem Each party will supply those capabilities which are his forte-for the man imagination insight Inspiration and heuristics for the computer enormous computing power high-speed data retrieval from a vast store elaborate housekeeping and so on It is part of the MAC objective to make computing power available on a publicutility basis with an operating philosophy analogous to that of an electric power utility The keynote is ease of access-smooth close coupling between the user and his problem as represented by data and program in the cornputer One can visualize a human user and the computer collaborating in a real-time dia- The MAC concept postulates that the timesharing mode of operation differs in an extremely significant way from the batch-processing mode The heart of the MAC experiment will be a thorough exploration of this difference A report of the Summer Study is in preparation It will be available late this year Symposium on Computer Augmentation of Human Reasoning June 16 17 1964 WfIua hinglim D A Symposium on Computer Augmentation of Human Reasoning co-sponsored by the Office of Naval Research Information Systems Branch and The Bunker-Ramo Corporation will be held on Tuesday and Wednesday June 16 and 17 1964 The Symposium will be conducted in the Main Conference Room #1315 New State Department on 23rd Street between C and E Streets SBuilding •N W Washington D C Objectives of the Sym- ' psiu Wareingtwofol Dfield p a ohas existing algorithms or for implementing trialand-error approaches such as the Monte Carlo method but it is now clear that such restrictions are no longer necessary t It is not the purpose of this Symposium to review all appropriate efforts and results but rather to present representative aspects of the Accordingly the number of invited papers been limited to allow speakers to develop and discuss thair topics in some depth It is anticipated that formal Proceedings of the Symposium will be published in the autumn of 1964 1 To highlight the importance to human decision makers and problem solvers of the significance of recent research results concerning the use of computers in such areas as defining the problem discerning important relationships in the data and synthesizing possisolutions or methods of attack and Sble areas 2 To identify the remaining critical in which subsequent research effort should be Sfocused f sThe ' 20p7M 1 ' Attendance at this unclassified Symposium is open to all interested technical personnel Further information and a preliminary Symposlum program may be obtained by contacting Mr L larles H Wacker Bunker-Ramo Corporation 8433 Fallbrook Avenue Canoga Park California Area Code 213 346-6000 At present computers are used primarily for manipulating umerical data according to 29 UNIVAC 1107 Toronto City rraffic Control Il'ita Divi'ln I Slkrffy fl d Corp Nov Vor kI Nno Fo rk The timing and phasing of traffic signals in response to vehicle flow by a UNIVAC 1107-the initial phase in a complex traffic control system that will ultimately cover all of Metropolitan Toronto-was initiated in August 1963 ways to incorporate future improvements in t aff Ic control techniques and devices such as signs for indicating optimum speeds and routes and detailed traffic flow information which would be used in upgrading the system The use of a powerful real-time computer marks the introduction of an entirely new concept of traffic control that will provide virtually unlimited flexibility in the way that traffic signals can be made to respond to second-by-second changes in traffic conditions As vehicles pass near magnetically-sensitive detector units buried beneath street surfaces signals are flashed to the computer in City Hall These signals enable the computer to calculate optimum phasing and timing of traffic signals that will expedite the flow of traffic In 1957 many types of specialized traffic signal equipment and systems were available which respond in one way or another to traffic movements Although these equipments had helped to improve traffic flow in some cities their value in many traffic situations was limited For example no equipment was available that could detect traffic congestion ironically it sometimes even systematically aggravated rather than alleviated a chronic traffic problem In Metropolitan Toronto the best of such equipment would not significantly improve existing traffic conditions much less solve the more serious problems which a continual increase in vehicle registration would introduce Obviously the solution was not to be found in the use of existing traffic control equipment Traffic sensors will be installed in the approaches to approximately 1000 intersections so that by January 1965 the 1107 Computer will be controlling all timed signals within the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto Metropolitan Toronto is a federation of 13 separate municipalities it was incorporated on April 15 1963 and vested with authority to provide major region-wide services The possibility of using an electronic computer to control traffic soon captured the attention of the engineers conducting the study because computerswere thenbeginningto penetrate the process control industry These systems could accept inputs from many remote locations also they were being endowed with larger memories and faster cycling speeds so that masses of data could be absorbed computed and relayed rapidly to remotely-located control elements THE TRAFFIC PROBLEM The number of registered vehicles in Metropolitan Toronto increased from 330 000 in 1953 to 585 000 in 1962 a gain of more than 75 percent During the same period population rose from 1 174 000 to 1 625 405 a rise of 38 4 percent There are now 2 8 persons per vehicle ieenthe in the area a hrea c compared ared to tow3 6 3 persons persons per per vehice vehiToronto one Of Metropolitan giving in 1953 cle the highest ratgiios oftopulaitanontocar ownershi the highest ratios of population to car ownership on the North American Continent By 1957 it had become obvious that rapidly growing urban areas surrounding the city of Toronto and the consequent continuing increases in traffic volume would require much more than a mere enlargement of the existing traffic signal system through streets is analogous to controlling the flow of fluids and gases in a process control system the study concentrated on the feasibility of using an electronic computer to control a network of traffic signals The results indicated that using a computer for traffic control was operationally and economically feasible Authorities of the Metropolitan Toronto Council when presented with the proposal for such a system saw that it offered potential exceeding anything yet attempted in Canada or the U S and authorized allocation of funds for a pilot study under actual traffic conditions Mr Sam Cass and a group of traffic consultants known as Traffic Research Corp set out to outline a program which could cope with a daily multi-directional flow of a half-million vehicles A new system would have to provide sufficient flexibility to accommodate future traffic situations in Toronto and outlying areas THE PILOT STUDY Traffic Research Corporation was commissioned to conduct a pilot study to test a cornputerized traffic control system under actual 30 ____ I traffic conditions This study was initiated in the summer of 1959 and terminated in tho spring of 1961 Two broad range objectives were established 1 Prove that an electronic computer could be integrated with an existing traffic signal network to provide a flexible reliable and wellcoordinated signal system and 2 Demonstrate how this powerful traffic control system could be used to improve traffic flow measure the improvement and provide enough traffic data to make additional and significant improvements To carry out the study traffic detectors were installed at some of the busiest intersections in Toronto including nine signals along Eglinton Avenue a major east-west metropolitan thoroughfare This street passes through very dense areas of Btores supermarkets schools high-rise apartments and office buildings The road grade is level at the east and west ends and fairly rolling in the central region for a distance of about 1 7 miles Intersecting Eglinton Avenue are some of the busiest north-south thoroughfares in the city At the Yonge-Eglinton intersection for example the northern terminal of the Yonge Street subway connects with one of the largest trolley and motor bus interchanges in the country Detectors were located on all approaches at distances ranging from 200 to 600 feet back from the intersection The final test area used in the last stages of the study consisted of 16 signalized intersections covering the same 1 7 miles but opening out to an area a half mile in width Detectors were connected to telephone lines traffic counts to the central computer site 4 small modification unit was installed in the signal control boxes to enable the computer to take control of the signal from the local contr Iler A monitor line from the local controller was also comnected to the central computer site in order that the computei' could detect the state of the signal at any given time andtransmitted PILOT STUDY FINDINGS When the automatic system was compared with the existing fixed time system these improvements were noted e In the evening rush hours the automatic system decreased the average delay per vehicle by some I1 percent In the morning rush hours K the average delay per vehicle decreased some 25 percent and congesticn was reduced by 28 percent Rush hour speeds which often average less than 12 to 13 miles per hour can be increased with computer control to over 16 miles an hour o For a given delay traffic volumes may be increased up to 20 percent These figures described the performance of the automatic system developed only to an inter mediate stage of efficiency With further development of the control programs and with an extended area of control of traffic greater benefits are anticipated The pilot study demonstrated that an electronic-computer-controlled traffic control system is practical for city-wide installation In the Metropolitan Toronto area over 50 thousand vehicle hours of delay are caused by rush hour traffic congestion every day If even 50 percent of the results achieved in this study were realized throughout the entire traffic area a reduction in total traffic delay exceeding 9000 vehicle-hours daily could be realized This would amount to a direct saving to the motoring public of over 2 million dollars per year in vehicle operating expenses alone In addition the resulting increase in peak capacity of the road system would be comparable to the improvement which could be achieved by the expenditure of 20 to 40 million dollars for widening existing street facilities or building new roads HOW THE SViSTEM OPERATES The new system of traffic control designed for the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto is a network of traffic signals and traffic detectors connected by wire lines to a UNIVAC 1107 The computer will continuously and automatically almlyze the'movement of vehicles within the controlled area Traffic flow will be hastened and congestion will be minimized by the computer's second-by-second control of the phasing and duration of stop and go signals located at approximately 1000 critical intersections The computer is now operating in its ground floor site in the Toronto City Hall One Hundred tiaffic signals have been connected to the computer and are now being directly controlled by the computer By January 965 traffic flow through 1000 intersections will be controlled by the computer Traffic Flow Is measured by relatively lowcost easily maintained sensors which transmit data over Bell Telephone Company wires to the computer 3ecaase the detectors will be installed in all streets feeding into critical Intersections the computer can constantly monitor traffic flow all over the Metropolitan Toronto area and detect potential traffic jams before they occur PRINCIPAL ELEMENTS OF THE SYSTEM A master control program consisting of a large number of electronically-stored instructions enables the 1107 to execute logical and mathematical computations with data supplied by the sensors and use the results of these compitationz to control timing of traffic signals Here's a typical control sequence The 1 107 Computer a powerful system and appropriate interface equipment In addition to the traditional elements found in most conventional traffic control systems traffic lights and or semaphores time cycle or program signal controllers and street-side manual pushbuttons the new Toronto Traffic Control system also includes e Sensors to detect and signal both passage and presence of vehicles replace other pavement devices Communications lines in a network linking all intersections to a central point 1 Appropriate initial instructions are glvre to the system through the control console e Converters to convert the output of the sensor into a communicable message tone pulse and so on 2 As the computer observes each signal in a predetermined order it energlze3 the modification unit of each corresponding street intersection controller acquring direct remote control a Communications devices to gather and transmit sensed traffic data to central computer and mu ltiplexers to permit transmission of multiple signals over the same lines 3 Conventional timers within each traffic signal which had been controlling signal duration during the period of local control are disconnected and remain inoperative until reengaged by the computer itself The new Metropolitan Toronto Traffic Control System is composed of three main elements Sensor Element Communications Ele- 4 During this computer control phase current traffic data coming from traffic detectors and controller m•nitors are read continuously by the computer ment and the Computer Control Element 5 Separate computations are made for each intersection in order to determine which signals if any should be switched Traffic detectors are magnetic field devices to which normal electrical current will be supplied An automobile in the immediate vicinity disturbs the magnetic field set up by the device and a tone is transmitted over a multiplexed line to the central control point Sensor Element 6 Appropriate output pulses are transmitted from the computer site to signals which should be changed These detectors are not traditional traffic counters but are binary devices specifically designed for a computer-based system They represent a substantial improvement in terms of cost and reliability when compared to physical contact devices in the street or the overhead sensing devices used in earlier experiments The wires leading from the detector to the telephone line connection box at the intersection will be laid in a saw cut made in the road surface 7 Moments after a control box has bfen set special monitors transmit data to the computer which indicates whether the control boxes and signals have been sei the way the computer has ordered Thi entire sequence is repeated for each traffic intersection in the system every 2 seconds Any equipment malfunction can be detected immediately however the computer releases control of the affected intersections which revert to standard timers within the control boxes until the fault is coý'rected Remot- operation of the various signal displays at 1000 intersections require the installation of 000 output lines from the computer site Communications Element Signals traveling to the control center move ever leased telephone lines Feedback from the 32 control center to the signal contrnllr which Computer for controlling the Input from and a uqtes the traffic signal moves in the same way In the pilot test five telephone connections were used for controls one for remote switchang to manual conditions one for remote indexing of the switching solenoids and one to each of the three cam switches to monitor the signals The parallel use of five lines is the simplest method technically Interference from outside power sources is minimized when telephone lines are used the output to the various traffic signals in the city An Input Scanner is also used for receiving signals describing the city's traffic conditions and an Output Distributor sends traffic control signals In addition an Inter-Computer Synchronizer functions as a communications link between the two computers The communications features also include a multiplexer which terminates the detector signals coming from the street over telephone lines These signals are identified by tone and distributed from the multiplexer over cable to an input scaawnr which is in effect the interface or buffer between the central control mcchani-sm and the communication system After all traffic control detectors have been tied into the 1107 system January 1965 other data processinr projects are expected to be performed by the computer without impeding its ability to maintain second-by-second control of the traffic system itself Some of this work will include traffic assignment studies i e determ ning optimum routes for traffic according to time of day police statistics and accident studies by location frequency and type In addition the computer may become the hub of enforcement record keeping in which records for violations and subsequent disposition will be stored in the computer's memory and be available on a real-time basis OTHER USES FOR SYSTEM Computer Control Element The heart of the computer system is the 1107 for traffic simulation and analysis and a smaller Special-Purpose Traffic Control l igital Static Resolver V' S Navy Bur 'eau V 'al Ie'riaPw m IIEN Wa'u iington A 203thfi information storage capability flexibility ability to handle more complex problems and simplicity since all calculations involve simple arithmetic and all operations are derived from simple yes-no type decisions Analog systems become very large for increased accuracy and storage and are not flexible since a set of components designed and connected to solve nne problem cannot be easily rearranged to solve another problem The Engineering Division RREN of the Bureau of Naval Weapons awarded a contract to the Computer Control Company SC of Los Angeles California for the development of a special purpose digital computer known as a Static Resolver SR The SR is intended as a stabilization computer for use in advanced shipboard fire control systems It conjunction with a general purpose digital computer The SR is also applicable for aircraft stabilization applications The contract was awarded June will be made in June 1964 to and delivery 1963Naval Ordnance Test Station China Lake the California for test and evaluation hlude While the optimum shipboard digital systern has not been determined it is certain to inone or more general-purpose digital computers in conjunction with a number of special purpose digital computers The SR falls into the latter category While the SR is performing stabilization computations at a high data rate for a launcher or gun mount for example the general purpose digital computer can be busy 3olving slow data rate problems The operations performed by the SR are generally time consuming and awkward when performed by a general purpose computer so that with the SR operating as a satellite system valuable cornputer time is saved on the general purpose computer which can be used to perform additional tasks Present stabilization techniques involve the use of analog computers which employ such analog dpvices as precision potentiometers resolver chains and servomotors which have limited accuracy and are comparatively unreliable because of brushes and rotating parts With increased data handling requirements accuracy requirements and system complexity the use of analog techniques Is diminishing In its place the use of digital techniques is rapidly increasing with attendant improvement in speed of operation accuracy reliability data handling 33 updated fc r train and elevation at a maximum The SR is capable of operating in three dii- solver alternately updating the two launchers 1 Furnish stabilized deck position data for two shipboard platforms atieh Re mL4tle launchera and gun mounts This involves the computation of platform train and elevation angles from given horizontal cartesian coordinates X Y Z from a general purpose digital computer and roll pitch and heading angles from the ship's gyro compass The Static Resolver will be equipped with a control panel for manual operation and checkout of its computations The control panel will contain such features as a display of operating registers manual-automatic control switch start button operating mode selection switch and buttons foz manual entry of data into the operating registers A checkout chart will be furnished which will give calculated output data for specified input data It will be possible to checkout the static resolver while it is cornpletely disconnected from the rest of the operating system except for the 115-volt 400-cycle single phase 30-watt power supply 2 Furnish stabilized horizontal target position data to the general purpose digital computer for two target tracking radars This involves the computation of cartesian coordinates X Y Z from given radar train and elevation angles range vector and roll pitch and heading angles from the ship gyro compass The estimated size of the static resolver is less than 1 cubic foot and it will weigh approximately 40 pounds For maximum reliability electronic circuitry will be fabricated In microelectronic form such as thin films integrated silicon chips or a combination of both Separately attached elements such as conventional transistors diodes capacitors resistors inductors or transformers will not be used except as necessary due to the limitations in the state-of-the-art of microelectronic techniques 3 Furnish stabilized deck position data for one shipboard platform such as a missile launcher or gun mount and stabilized horizontal target position data to the general purpose digital computer for one target tracking radar While the Static Resolver is capable of operating in all three of the above modes it is designed to operate in only one of these modes at any given time The Static Resolver is fully automatic with a built in program After all input data is entered the operation starts automatically After each operation the proper data transfer takes place automatically and upon completion of the operation the outputs are automatically made avalable in the output stor'age registers After completion of one program the Static Resolver automatically begins a new one The design approach for the SR used by 3C is simple and unique and incorporates as the main component a 3C Digital Resolver DR The DR is a computational device which allows high-speed manipulations of transcendentals with a substantial saving in hardware complexity as compared to general purpose digital computors This unique device coupled with proper input and output registers and gating makes up thr SR The SR program is wired in and no memory is required All input and output data are in parallel 15-hit 40 seconds of arc natural binary form Voltage levels current levels and waveform characteristics are compatible with present shipboard general purpose digital computers It is envisioned that the Static Resolver will find many applications in Bureau of Naval Weapons digital systems to provide computations of stabilization quantities related to differently oriented sets of axes and where high accuracy with minimum complexity is demanded The Static Resolver can be employed as a separate computer or incorporated as part of a general purpose digital computer with common power supplies and so forth The total time to make one complete computation is 500 microseconds For example the SR can compute stabiliwed train and elevation angles for one missile launcher in 500 microseconds 2000 times per see Both the train and elevation angles are available simultaneously If two launchers are multiplexed to the output as in Mode 1 each launcher could be 34 X