- CDC 1604
The CDC 1604 was a 48-bit computer designed and manufactured by
Seymour Cray and his team at theControl Data Corporation . The 1604 is known as the first commercially successful transistorized computer. The 1604 designation was chosen by adding CDCs first street address (501) to Cray's former project, the 1103. A cut-down 24-bit version, designated theCDC 924 , was also produced.The first 1604 was delivered to the
US Navy in1960 for applications supporting majorFleet Operations Control Center s inHawaii ,London , andNorfolk, Virginia . By 1964, over 50 systems were built. TheCDC 3000 succeeded the 1604.A 12-bit minicomputer, called the
CDC 160A , was often used as an I/O processor in 1604 systems. The CDC-160A is, arguably, the first minicomputer.Architecture
Memory in the CDC 1604 consisted of 32K 48-bit words of magnetic
core memory with a cycle time of 6.4 microseconds. It was organized as two banks of 16K words each, with odd addresses in one bank and even addresses in the other. The two banks were phased 3.2 microseconds apart, so average effective memory access time was 4.8 microseconds.Each 48-bit word contained two 24-bit instructions. The instruction format was 6-3-15: 6 bits for the operation code, 3 bits for a "designator" (index register for memory access instructions, condition for jump instructions) and 15 bits for a memory address (or shift count, for shift instructions).
Trivia
NAVCOSSACT based at theWashington Navy Yard provided systems and training support.JOVIAL was used as the CDC 1604's main programming language whileoctal was used to program shared services supported by the CDC 160A.During
1969 , Fleet Operations Control Center, Pacific (FOCCPAC at Kunia) onOahu inHawaii launched an "Automated Control Environment" (ACE) using a cluster of five (5) CDC 160As to supervise a multi-tasking network of four (4) CDC 1604's.The third version of the PLATO computer-based educational system was implemented on a CDC-1604.
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