CDC 3000 series

Last updated
CDC 3000 series
CDC 3000 family overview - 3D rendering.jpg
CDC 3000 family overview
Design
Manufacturer Control Data Corporation
Designer Seymour Cray
Casing
DimensionsHeight : 191 cm (75 in)
Length (double) : 214 cm (84 in)
Length (single) : 114 cm (45 in)
Width : 68 cm (27 in)
System
Successor CDC 6000 series

The CDC 3000 series ("thirty-six hundred" or "thirty-one hundred") are a family of mainframe computers from Control Data Corporation (CDC). The first member, the CDC 3600, was a 48-bit system introduced in 1963. The same basic design led to the cut-down CDC 3400 of 1964, and then the 24-bit CDC 3300, 3200 and 3100 introduced between 1964 and 1965. [1] The 3000 series replaced the earlier CDC 1604 and CDC 924 systems. [2]

Contents

The line was a great success and became CDC's cash cow through the 1960s. [3] The series significantly outsold the much faster and more expensive machines in the CDC 6000 series, but the performance of the 3000's relative to other vendors quickly eroded. The line was phased out of production in the early 1970s in favour of new members of the 6000 series, and then the CDC Cyber series, initially based on the 6600 design but spanning a wide range of performance.

Specifications

ModelWord sizeRelease datePriceFrequencyMemory max MIPS Picture
CDC 3600 48-bit June 1963$1,200,000 [4] 714 kHz (1.4μs cycle) [5] 1.536 megabyte (262144 x 48 bits) [4] 0.700 MIPS CDC 3600 - 3D rendering.jpg
CDC 3400 48-bit November 1964$680,000 [5] 667 kHz (1.5μs cycle) [5] 192 kilobytes (32767 x 48 bits)0.700 MIPS CDC 3400 - 3D rendering.jpg
CDC 3300 24-bit December 1965$220,000 [5] 800 kHz (1.25μs cycle) [5] 768 kilobytes (262144 x 24 bits)0.800 MIPS CDC 3300 - 3D rendering.jpg
CDC 3200 24-bit May 1964 [5] $200,000 [5] 800 kHz (1.25μs cycle) [5] 96 kilobytes (32767 x 24 bits)0.800 MIPS CDC 3200 - 3D rendering.jpg
CDC 3100 24-bit February 1965 [5] $120,000 [5] 571 kHz (1.75μs cycle) [5] 96 kilobytes (32767 x 24 bits)0.500 MIPS CDC 3100 - 3D rendering.jpg

Upper 3000 series

The upper 3000 series uses a 48-bit word size. The first 3000 machine [3] to be produced was the CDC 3600; first delivered in June 1963. First deliveries of the CDC 3400 and CDC 3800 were in December 1965. These machines were designed for scientific computing applications; they were the upgrade path for users of the CDC 1604 machines. However these machines were overshadowed by the upcoming 60-bit CDC 6000 series machines when the CDC 6600 was introduced in December 1964 and delivered in 1965. [6] Some high-end computer labs purchased these machines as stopgaps, while waiting for delivery of their 6600 machine. (CDC had indicated that the 6600 machines would use the same assembly language.)

Lower 3000 series

The lower 3000 series use a 24-bit word size. They are based on the earlier CDC 924 - a 24-bit version of the (48-bit) CDC 1604. The first lower 3000 to be released was the CDC 3200 (May 1964), followed by the smaller CDC 3100 [2] (February 1965), and the CDC 3300 (December 1965). The final machine in the series, the CDC 3500, was released in March 1967 and uses integrated circuits instead of discrete components. The 3300 and 3500 have optional relocation capabilities, floating-point arithmetic, and BDP (Business + Data Processing) instructions. These machines were targeted towards business and commercial computing.

The 3150

Control Data Corporation's CDC 3150 was described as a "batch computer," [7] and it included a FORTRAN [8] and a COBOL [9] compiler. Its console looked like this.

Instruction sets

The instruction set of the upper 3000 series is composed mostly of 24-bit instructions (packed two per word), but also contained some 48-bit instructions. The lower 3000 is based on a 24-bit subset of those available on the upper 3000 systems. It is therefore possible to write programs which will run on all 3000 systems. And as these systems were based on the prior 1604 and 924 instruction sets, some backward compatibility also exists. However the systems do diverge from each other in areas such as relocation and the BDP instructions.

Memory

All 3000 series computers use magnetic-core memory. The CDC 3500 machine use the same core memory modules as used in the CDC 6000 / Cyber 70 series computers.

CDC 3302 core memory 3302 core memory stack.png
CDC 3302 core memory

Architecture

The lower 3000 CPU uses a 24-bit architecture: [10] instructions are 24 bits in length, as are the two operand registers A and Q. There are four index registers of 15 bits, B0 through B3, though B0 is always zero (zero when read; writes do not affect the value). There is no status (flags or condition code) register. Up to 32,768 words of core memory, 24 bits per word, can be directly addressed, and multiple banks can be switched in. Two or three memory bank configurations are the most common.

Each instruction contains six bits of opcode, one bit specifying whether indirect addressing used, two bits of index register address and fifteen bits of address.

Arithmetic uses ones' complement, so there are two forms of zero: positive zero and negative zero. The A and Q register can function as a combined 48-bit register for certain arithmetic instructions. The E register has 48 bits.

The 3600 CPU can execute around one million instructions per second (1 MIPS), giving it supercomputer status in 1965. [3]

Much of the basic architecture design of the 3000 series was done by Seymour Cray, then passed on to others to complete as he moved on to designing the CDC 6000 series. Several of the innovative features that made the 6600 'the first supercomputer' can be seen in prototype in the 3000 series.

Software

The operating systems for the upper 3000 are called SCOPE (Supervisory Control Of Program Execution). Tape SCOPE is a serial batch OS with no buffering for card reading or print spooling. Drum SCOPE upgraded performance and features print spooling. CDC developed a OS for the 3800 called SUMMIT (Simultaneous Usage of Multiprogramming, Multiprocessing with Interactive Timesharing) to take advantage of hardware's advanced features. Because CDC focused all its resources in advancing the 6600 system, SUMMIT was never released.

The earliest operating system for the lower 3000 series was called RTS OS. However, it was quickly replaced with MSOS (Mass Storage OS). The premier operating system for the CDC 3300 and CDC 3500 is called MASTER (Multi Access, Shared Time Executive Routine). MASTER is a multi-tasking, disk-based OS but still batch job oriented. Card jobs are cached to disk and printer output spooled. MASTER optimizes memory usage with page-mapping hardware.

An operating system called REAL-TIME SCOPE exists for both lower- and upper-3000 systems. A disk-based version of SCOPE was eventually made available for the upper-3000 systems. [11]

FORTRAN, COBOL, and ALGOL [12] were available. The assembly language was called COMPASS. These were available from CDC.

An APL system for the upper 3000 series computers was developed at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. This system was made available to other users of the upper 3000 series.[ citation needed ]

Character set

The operating systems for the CDC 3xxx typically use six-bit characters, so the 64 character set does not contain lowercase letters. The character set contained (in display code order):

: A-Z 0-9 + - * / ( ) $ = (space) , . # [ ] % " _ ! & ' ? < > @ \ ^ ;

This six-bit extension of the four-bit BCD encoding is referred to as BCDIC (BCD interchange code.) IBM later extended this code further to create the eight-bit "extended BCDIC", or EBCDIC code.

Depending on the device, some characters are rendered differently, especially the line printer and some terminals:

charactersometimes
displays as
#≡
"≠
_→ or {
 !∨
&∧
'↑
 ?↓ or }
@≤
\≥
^¬

Note the absence of control characters, especially carriage return and line feed. These are encoded by the record structure.

Partial list of users

United States

Oregon State University offered a CDC 3300 for use from the mid-to-late 1960s up until about 1980. [3] It used a home grown operating system known as OS3 (for Oregon State Open Shop Operating System). [13]

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service used CDC 3000 series computers for many years. [3]

Northeastern University in Boston used a CDC 3300 in the early 1970s.

International Timesharing Corporation (ITS) of Chaska, Minnesota sold timesharing services using CDC 3300s. (ITS later acquired another timesharing company that used CDC 3600s, before it, in turn, was acquired by United Computing Systems of Kansas City, Missouri.)

California State University at Northridge had a dual 3170 that provided timesharing service to the California State University and College system. Many of the other campuses also had CDC 3150 machines for local batch operation. [14] [15] In 1970 CDC 3150s were installed at most campuses of the California State College system. San Jose State and LA State got CDC 3300s and served as regional data centers with (very flaky) data links to the other campuses. California State Polytechnic College (San Luis Obispo) and San Diego State University had IBM System/360s. The rest got 3150s. Typical configuration was 24K words of 24-bit core memory, four 7-track tape drives, drum printer, card reader, card punch, two 8MB disc drives (removable packs). At Humboldt State College this was used for both administrative and instructional purposes. It replaced an IBM 1620.

The US Air Force used numerous CDC 3800 series systems in the Air Force Satellite Control Facility located at what is now Onizuka Air Force Station in Sunnyvale, California. As part of the Air Force Satellite Control Network, they were used to do orbital planning and maintenance calculations for defense satellites until they were phased out and replaced by IBM mainframes in the mid-1990s. These systems used the JOVIAL programming language to provide the accuracy necessary for these calculations.

The Center for Naval Analyses had a CDC 3800 from about 1968 until about 1975. It was used for scientific computing in support of operations research for the U. S. Navy.

Michigan State University's Department of Computer Science and Engineering had a CDC 3600 [16]

CDC's South West Region had the following accounts late 1960s and early 1970s:

Long Beach Memorial Hospital, Long Beach, California (patient location tracking and billing)
Many of the California state universities (Fullerton, Los Angeles, etc.) in their engineering departments
California State College Los Angeles was also the California state southern region data center. (common admissions, etc.)
California State College San Jose, the Northern California regional data center, had a CDC 3300, as did LA State Southern Regional data center.
Jet Propulsion Lab (Pasadena, California) - test of various outer space modules
University of Texas, El Paso
Vandenberg AFB (missile launch control) (also two CDC 3600s - main base - use unknown)
Thompson-Ramo-Wollridge - Redondo Beach, California
Cal Poly, Pomona, California (engineering school)
Cal Poly Northridge, California (engineering school)
Point Mugu, Naval Air Station (weather balloon tracking/data analysis)
El Centro Naval Air Station
Camp Pendleton, California (US Marine Corps) - development/test bed for Marine Tactical Aircraft Command and Control System - MTACCS) - Initially 3300 - upgraded to a 3500 about 1973-74.
Beverly Hills Data Center - Part of the CDC Cybernet network and also a rarity for CDC - did complete bank computing for about 12 small local banks. A midpoint of the CyberNet system, it interfaced to the Los Angeles Data Center (CDC 6600). The banking accounts were acquired from Corporation for Economic, Industrial and Operations Research (C.E.I.R) - an IBM system (1401?) which was replaced with the 3300. This system had 8 or 10 CDC 854 disk drives and connected to a Burroughs model B-3000 magnetic ink character reader (MICR).

Europe

CERN used a CDC 3800 from 1966 until January 1969, when it was replaced by a CDC 6600. The 3800 was then acquired by State of Geneva and installed at the local University of Geneva. [17] [18]

A number of CDC 3000s were installed in France, either in academic computing centers, in software companies or in the aeronautics, nuclear and oil industries.

The University of Oslo had a CDC 3300 (1967 - 1976) [19]

One CDC 3300 was installed in the late 1960s in England, in Computation Research & Development Ltd, a London-based subsidiary of the civil engineering designers Freeman Fox & Partners. It was used for engineering calculations and commercial computing. It was de-commissioned in 1974.

The German Meteorological Service Deutscher Wetterdienst used a CDC 3800 and CDC 3400 for numerical weather prediction in late 1960s.

Oceania

There were many CDC 3000 series machines in Australia. CSIRO had a 3600 installed in Canberra in 1964, with satellite 3200 machines in Melbourne, Sydney, and probably Brisbane and Adelaide. The Bureau of Census and Statistics had a 3600, 3300, and a 3500 in Canberra, with a 3200 in each of the six state capitals several of which were upgraded to 3300s about 1970. Monash University had a 3200 delivered in 1964. [20] Defence Signals Directorate had at least one. BHP had two 3300 machines at each of its Newcastle and Port Kembla Data centres. They were replaced by 3500s in 1977, and remained in operation until the mid-1980s.

Communist bloc

Communist-ruled Hungary obtained a CDC 3300 machine between 1969 and 1971. It was administered by the National Academy of Sciences throughout the 1970s, mainly for running scientific computations. [21]

Other CDC 3300 systems installed in former Eastern Bloc countries [3] (list not complete):

Standard peripherals

The CDC 6000 series were also initially marketed with many of the same peripherals.

Images

CDC 3000 series family, in basic configuration Full CDC 3000 family with names.jpg
CDC 3000 series family, in basic configuration
Three views of a CDC 3000 series model 3400 with sizing CDC 3000 series sizing.jpg
Three views of a CDC 3000 series model 3400 with sizing
CDC 3800 console at the Udvar-Hazy Center of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum CDC 3800 - Udvar-Hazy Center.JPG
CDC 3800 console at the Udvar-Hazy Center of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mainframe computer</span> Large computer

A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and large-scale transaction processing. A mainframe computer is large but not as large as a supercomputer and has more processing power than some other classes of computers, such as minicomputers, servers, workstations, and personal computers. Most large-scale computer-system architectures were established in the 1960s, but they continue to evolve. Mainframe computers are often used as servers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Time-sharing</span> Computing resource shared by concurrent users

In computing, time-sharing is the sharing of a computing resource among many tasks or users. It enables multi-tasking by a single user or enables multiple-user sessions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of operating systems</span> Aspect of computing history

Computer operating systems (OSes) provide a set of functions needed and used by most application programs on a computer, and the links needed to control and synchronize computer hardware. On the first computers, with no operating system, every program needed the full hardware specification to run correctly and perform standard tasks, and its own drivers for peripheral devices like printers and punched paper card readers. The growing complexity of hardware and application programs eventually made operating systems a necessity for everyday use.

Control Data Corporation (CDC) was a mainframe and supercomputer company that in the 1960s was one of the nine major U.S. computer companies, which group included IBM, the Burroughs Corporation, and the Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), the NCR Corporation (NCR), General Electric, and Honeywell, RCA and UNIVAC. For most of the 1960s, the strength of CDC was the work of the electrical engineer Seymour Cray who developed a series of fast computers, then considered the fastest computing machines in the world; in the 1970s, Cray left the Control Data Corporation and founded Cray Research (CRI) to design and make supercomputers. In 1988, after much financial loss, the Control Data Corporation began withdrawing from making computers and sold the affiliated companies of CDC; in 1992, Cray established Control Data Systems, Inc. The remaining affiliate companies of CDC currently do business as the software company Ceridian.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CDC 6600</span> Mainframe computer by Control Data

The CDC 6600 was the flagship of the 6000 series of mainframe computer systems manufactured by Control Data Corporation. Generally considered to be the first successful supercomputer, it outperformed the industry's prior recordholder, the IBM 7030 Stretch, by a factor of three. With performance of up to three megaFLOPS, the CDC 6600 was the world's fastest computer from 1964 to 1969, when it relinquished that status to its successor, the CDC 7600.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">IBM 7090</span> Mainframe computer

The IBM 7090 is a second-generation transistorized version of the earlier IBM 709 vacuum tube mainframe computer that was designed for "large-scale scientific and technological applications". The 7090 is the fourth member of the IBM 700/7000 series scientific computers. The first 7090 installation was in December 1959. In 1960, a typical system sold for $2.9 million or could be rented for $63,500 a month.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">IBM 7030 Stretch</span> First IBM supercomputer using dedicated transistors

The IBM 7030, also known as Stretch, was IBM's first transistorized supercomputer. It was the fastest computer in the world from 1961 until the first CDC 6600 became operational in 1964.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of computing hardware (1960s–present)</span>

The history of computing hardware starting at 1960 is marked by the conversion from vacuum tube to solid-state devices such as transistors and then integrated circuit (IC) chips. Around 1953 to 1959, discrete transistors started being considered sufficiently reliable and economical that they made further vacuum tube computers uncompetitive. Metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) large-scale integration (LSI) technology subsequently led to the development of semiconductor memory in the mid-to-late 1960s and then the microprocessor in the early 1970s. This led to primary computer memory moving away from magnetic-core memory devices to solid-state static and dynamic semiconductor memory, which greatly reduced the cost, size, and power consumption of computers. These advances led to the miniaturized personal computer (PC) in the 1970s, starting with home computers and desktop computers, followed by laptops and then mobile computers over the next several decades.

COMPASS, COMPrehensive ASSembler, is any of a family of macro assembly languages for Control Data Corporation's 3000 series, and for the 60-bit CDC 6000 series, 7600 and Cyber 70 and 170 series mainframe computers. While the architectures are very different, the macro and conditional assembly facilities are similar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CDC 7600</span> 1967 supercomputer

The CDC 7600 was designed by Seymour Cray to be the successor to the CDC 6600, extending Control Data's dominance of the supercomputer field into the 1970s. The 7600 ran at 36.4 MHz and had a 65 Kword primary memory using magnetic core and variable-size secondary memory. It was generally about ten times as fast as the CDC 6600 and could deliver about 10 MFLOPS on hand-compiled code, with a peak of 36 MFLOPS. In addition, in benchmark tests in early 1970 it was shown to be slightly faster than its IBM rival, the IBM System/360, Model 195. When the system was released in 1967, it sold for around $5 million in base configurations, and considerably more as options and features were added.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">IBM 305 RAMAC</span> First computer to use magnetic disk storage

The IBM 305 RAMAC was the first commercial computer that used a moving-head hard disk drive for secondary storage. The system was publicly announced on September 14, 1956, with test units already installed at the U.S. Navy and at private corporations. RAMAC stood for "Random Access Method of Accounting and Control", as its design was motivated by the need for real-time accounting in business.

Plug compatible refers to "hardware that is designed to perform exactly like another vendor's product." The term PCM was originally applied to manufacturers who made replacements for IBM peripherals. Later this term was used to refer to IBM-compatible computers.

Pertec Computer Corporation (PCC), formerly Peripheral Equipment Corporation (PEC), was a computer company based in Chatsworth, California which originally designed and manufactured peripherals such as floppy drives, tape drives, instrumentation control and other hardware for computers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CDC 1604</span> Multipurpose Mainframe Computer & Peripherals

The CDC 1604 is a 48-bit computer designed and manufactured by Seymour Cray and his team at the Control Data Corporation (CDC). The 1604 is known as one of the first commercially successful transistorized computers. Legend has it that the 1604 designation was chosen by adding CDC's first street address to Cray's former project, the ERA-UNIVAC 1103.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CDC 6000 series</span> Family of 1960s mainframe computers

The CDC 6000 series is a discontinued family of mainframe computers manufactured by Control Data Corporation in the 1960s. It consisted of the CDC 6200, CDC 6300, CDC 6400, CDC 6500, CDC 6600 and CDC 6700 computers, which were all extremely rapid and efficient for their time. Each is a large, solid-state, general-purpose, digital computer that performs scientific and business data processing as well as multiprogramming, multiprocessing, Remote Job Entry, time-sharing, and data management tasks under the control of the operating system called SCOPE. By 1970 there also was a time-sharing oriented operating system named KRONOS. They were part of the first generation of supercomputers. The 6600 was the flagship of Control Data's 6000 series.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CDC 160 series</span> Minicomputer

The CDC 160 series was a series of minicomputers built by Control Data Corporation. The CDC 160 and CDC 160-A were 12-bit minicomputers built from 1960 to 1965; the CDC 160G was a 13-bit minicomputer, with an extended version of the CDC 160-A instruction set, and a compatibility mode in which it did not use the 13th bit. The 160 was designed by Seymour Cray - reportedly over a long three-day weekend. It fit into the desk where its operator sat.

The VAXserver was a family of minicomputers developed and manufactured by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) using processors implementing the VAX instruction set architecture (ISA). The VAXserver models were variants of various VAX-based computers which were configured to only run operating systems which were licensed for network server use and not interactive time-sharing use. This was accomplished with different CPU modules and firmware.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">IBM System/360 Model 20</span> Low-end IBM computer model from 1960s

The IBM System/360 Model 20 is the smallest member of the IBM System/360 family announced in November 1964. The Model 20 supports only a subset of the System/360 instruction set, with binary numbers limited to 16 bits and no floating point. In later years it would have been classified as a 16-bit minicomputer rather than a mainframe, but the term "minicomputer" was not current, and in any case IBM wanted to emphasize the compatibility of the Model 20 rather than its differences from the rest of the System/360 line. It does, however, have the full System/360 decimal instruction set, that allows for addition, subtraction, product, and dividend of up to 31 decimal digits.

References

  1. ↑ "Data Communications Products and Systems" (PDF).
  2. 1 2 "CDC 3100 (Control Data Corporation) computer - CERN".
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Steve Cunningham (January 7, 2010). "Fixed-Head Disk Reader for the CDC 3300".
  4. 1 2 1964 Computer Survey
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 1967 Adams Report
  6. ↑ Cayton, Andrew R. L.; Sisson, Richard; Zacher, Chris (2006). The American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia. ISBN   0253003490.
  7. ↑ "CSULB's first batch computer, a Control Data Corp. (CDC) 3150" "Emerities - In Memorium". 2010.
  8. ↑ "LI Bedford Institute of Oceanography L'Institut Oceanographique" (PDF).
  9. ↑ JD Mahle Jr (November 28, 1969). "ERIC - Information Retrieval System".
  10. ↑ "Real Machines with 24-bit and 48-bit words".
  11. ↑ Henley, Ernest J.; Lewins, Jeffery (2014). Advances in Nuclear Science and Technology. ISBN   978-1483215662.
  12. ↑ "Compiling SIMULA".
  13. ↑ Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon 97331 "Primer for users of Oregon State's Open Shop Operating System (os-3)" (PDF). September 1972.
  14. ↑ "Users Manual CDC 3150 - California State University, Sacramento". 1972.
  15. ↑ "FRONT COVER, Users Manual, CDC 3150 - California State University, Sacramento". 1972.
  16. ↑ "Michigan State University". Facebook .
  17. ↑ The CDC 3800 boots up temporarily, 10 August 1966
  18. ↑ CERN bulletin, 20 January 1969
  19. ↑ Bubenko, Janis; Impagliazzo, John; Soelvberg, Arne (2005). History of Nordic Computing: IFIP WG9.7. ISBN   038724168X.
  20. ↑ Video on YouTube, Video footage taken by Ron Bird of the touchdown at Essendon Airport of the Flying Tigers CL44 Swing Tail freighter and the unloading of the CDC 3200 system at the Monash Clayton campus by Wridgway Bros, 1964.
  21. ↑ "Történetünk" [Our history] (in Hungarian). Retrieved 24 February 2012.
  22. ↑ "Počítač CDC 3300 vo Výskumnom výpočtovom stredisku OSN Bratislava | Stála výstava dejín výpočtovej techniky na Slovensku".
  23. 1 2 3 "Control Data 852/853/854 Disk Storage Drives" (PDF). Computer History Museum . c. 1970. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2022-12-18. Retrieved 2023-03-12.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.