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SCOPE (Supervisory Control of Program Execution) is a series of Control Data Corporation batch operating systems developed in the 1960s.
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SCOPE (Supervisory Control of Program Execution) is a series of Control Data Corporation batch operating systems developed in the 1960s.
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This operating system was based on the original Chippewa Operating System. In the early 1970s, it was renamed NOS/BE for the CDC Cyber machines. The SCOPE operating system is a file-oriented system using mass storage, random access devices. It was designed to make use of all capabilities of CDC 6000 computer systems and exploits fully the multiple-operating modes of all segments of the computer. Main tasks of SCOPE are controlling job execution, storage assignment, performing segment and overlay loading. Its features include comprehensive input/output functions and library maintenance routines. The operating system chronologically records all jobs run and any problems encountered. To aid debugging, dumps and memory maps are available.
SCOPE is a multiprogramming operating system capable of running up to eight jobs, called control points, at one time. One control point is used for system functions. [1] : p.1-2 Later versions increased this limit to 15.
SCOPE runs on the 6x00's peripheral processors (PPs). "A central processor (CP)… is completely within the power of every PP at all times." One PP, identified as PP0 runs the Monitor Program (MTR) "that oversees or controls all other activities." PP9 is assigned to control the system console typewriter and displays. The other PPs perform input/output functions as directed by MTR. [1] : p.1-1
A portion of the central processor's memory (called central memory, or CM) the Central Memory Resident (CMR) "is reserved for various system tables accessible by the PPs.” [1] : p.1-2 Part of this CMR is a communications area for each PP. Each communications area contains an "input register" and an "output register", followed by a message buffer. [1] : p.1-1
When the computer is deadstarted , all PP's are loaded with system code from magnetic tape. PP0 will begin running the monitor code. The remaining PPs will loop reading their input registers waiting for requests from the monitor. [1] : p.1-1
As of SCOPE 3.3 a number of programming language compilers and utilities were supported. Major languages were ALGOL, BASIC, FORTRAN, COBOL, and COMPASS (assembler). Other languages were APT, CSSL 3 (Continuous System Simulation Language), JOVIAL, SIMSCRIPT, and SIMULA. Other software included IGS (Interactive Graphics System), PERT, and SORT/MERGE. [2]
CDC systems were considered supercomputers, and customers were often large government agencies and research facilities. [3] [4] [5] Most of these had specialized requirements, and often wrote their own software. [6] [7] [8]
SCOPE was written by a programming team in Sunnyvale, California, about 2,000 miles from the CDC hardware division. It was considered by them a buggy and inefficient piece of software, though not much different than many operating systems of the era. At the CDC Arden Hills, Minnesota laboratories (where they referred to SCOPE as Sunnyvale's Collection Of Programming Errors) they had a competing operating system, MACE. This was the Mansfield And Cahlander Executive (from Greg Mansfield and Dave Cahlander, the authors of the system). It had started as an engineering test executive, but eventually developed into a complete operating system — a modularized rewrite and enhancement of the original Chippewa Operating System (COS). While never an official CDC product, a copy was freely given to any customer who asked for one. Many customers did, especially the more advanced ones (like University and research sites).
When Control Data decided to write its next operating system Kronos, it considered both the current SCOPE system and the unofficial MACE alternative. They chose to abandon the SCOPE system and base Kronos on the MACE software. Eventually, Kronos was replaced by the new Network Operating System (NOS). Though many smaller CDC customers continued to use the SCOPE system rather than Kronos. When NOS became the primary Control Data operating system, some customers running mainly batch operations were reluctant to switch to the NOS system, as they saw no benefit for their shop. So the SCOPE system was maintained, and renamed as NOS/BE (Batch Environment), primarily so that CDC Marketing could say that all mainframe customers were using the NOS operating system.
The computer emulation community has made repeated attempts to recover and preserve CDC software. It is now running under a CDC CYBER and 6000 series emulator.[ citation needed ]
A disk operating system (DOS) is a computer operating system that resides on and can use a disk storage device, such as a floppy disk, hard disk drive, or optical disc. A disk operating system provides a file system for organizing, reading, and writing files on the storage disk, and a means for loading and running programs stored on that disk. Strictly, this definition does not include any other functionality, so it does not apply to more complex OSes, such as Microsoft Windows, and is more appropriately used only for older generations of operating systems.
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.
Computerized batch processing is a method of running software programs called jobs in batches automatically. While users are required to submit the jobs, no other interaction by the user is required to process the batch. Batches may automatically be run at scheduled times as well as being run contingent on the availability of computer resources.
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 firm. CDC was one of the nine major United States computer companies through most of the 1960s; the others were IBM, Burroughs Corporation, DEC, NCR, General Electric, Honeywell, RCA, and UNIVAC. CDC was well-known and highly regarded throughout the industry at the time. For most of the 1960s, Seymour Cray worked at CDC and developed a series of machines that were the fastest computers in the world by far, until Cray left the company to found Cray Research (CRI) in the 1970s. After several years of losses in the early 1980s, in 1988 CDC started to leave the computer manufacturing business and sell the related parts of the company, a process that was completed in 1992 with the creation of Control Data Systems, Inc. The remaining businesses of CDC currently operate as Ceridian.
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.
The ETA10 is a vector supercomputer designed, manufactured, and marketed by ETA Systems, a spin-off division of Control Data Corporation (CDC). The ETA10 was an evolution of the CDC Cyber 205, which can trace its origins back to the CDC STAR-100, one of the first vector supercomputers to be developed.
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.
The CDC Cyber range of mainframe-class supercomputers were the primary products of Control Data Corporation (CDC) during the 1970s and 1980s. In their day, they were the computer architecture of choice for scientific and mathematically intensive computing. They were used for modeling fluid flow, material science stress analysis, electrochemical machining analysis, probabilistic analysis, energy and academic computing, radiation shielding modeling, and other applications. The lineup also included the Cyber 18 and Cyber 1000 minicomputers. Like their predecessor, the CDC 6600, they were unusual in using the ones' complement binary representation.
The CDC 3000 series 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. The 3000 series replaced the earlier CDC 1604 and CDC 924 systems.
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.
Display code is the six-bit character code used by many computer systems manufactured by Control Data Corporation, notably the CDC 6000 series in 1964, the 7600 in 1967 and the following Cyber series in 1971. The CDC 6000 series and their successors had 60 bit words. As such, typical usage packed 10 characters per word. It is a six-bit extension of the four-bit BCD encoding, and was referred to as BCDIC
Kronos is an operating system with time-sharing capabilities, written by Control Data Corporation in 1971. Kronos ran on the 60-bit CDC 6000 series mainframe computers and their successors. CDC replaced Kronos with the NOS operating system in the late 1970s, which were succeeded by the NOS/VE operating system in the mid-1980s.
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.
NOS is a discontinued operating system with time-sharing capabilities, written by Control Data Corporation in 1975.
The CDC 1700 was a 16-bit word minicomputer, manufactured by the Control Data Corporation with deliveries beginning in May 1966.
O26 was a text editor named after the IBM model 026 keypunch. The editor could be run on the CDC 6000 series, and later Cyber-70 and -170 series operator consoles. According to source code listings of the SCOPE version of O26, it was written in 1967 by CDC programmers Greg Mansfield and David Cahlander.
Service in Informatics and Analysis was one of the pioneering time-sharing service bureau companies in the late 1960s, later known as SIA Computer Services. Its head office was located at Lower Belgrave Street, close to Victoria Station in London, and the company had branch offices in Edinburgh, Manchester, the West End, Paris and in Hong Kong. SIA offered terminal services via the Post Office telephone network at speeds of 10, 15, 30, 60 and 120 characters per second for Teletype-style terminals and of 1200 baud, 2400 baud and 4800 baud for Remote Job Entry terminals. Later with the release of the IBM PC, systems were developed to emulate the Remote Batch and interactive terminals. Clients could also visit the head or branch offices to submit their jobs personally or have them accepted and supervised by the production department.
The Chippewa Operating System (COS) is a discontinued operating system developed by Control Data Corporation for the CDC 6600, generally considered the first supercomputer in the world. The Chippewa was initially developed as an experimental system, but was then also deployed on other CDC 6000 machines.
NOS/VE is a discontinued operating system with time-sharing capabilities, written by Control Data Corporation in the 1980s. It is a virtual memory operating system, employing the 64-bit virtual mode of the CDC Cyber 180 series computers. NOS/VE replaced the earlier NOS and NOS/BE operating systems of the 1970s.
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