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GE 635
The GE-600 series is a family of 36-bit mainframe computers originating in the 1960s, built by General Electric (GE). When GE left the mainframe business, the line was sold to Honeywell, which built similar systems into the 1990s as the division moved to Groupe Bull and then NEC. The system is perhaps best known as the hardware used by the Dartmouth Time-Sharing System (DTSS) and the Multics operating system. Multics was supported by virtual memory additions made in the GE 645. Architecture The 600-series CPU operates on 36-bit words, and addresses are 18 bits. The '' accumulator Register'' (AQ) is a 72-bit register that can also be accessed separately as two 36-bit registers (A and Q) or four 18-bit registers (AU,AL,QU,QL). An eight-bit ''Exponent Register'' contain the exponent for floating-point operations (the mantissa is in AQ). There are eight eighteen-bit index registers X0 through X7. The 18-bit ''Base Address Register'' (BAR) contains the base address and number of 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
General Electric
General Electric Company (GE) was an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in 1892, incorporated in the New York (state), state of New York and headquartered in Boston. Over the years, the company had multiple divisions, including GE Aerospace, aerospace, GE Power, energy, GE HealthCare, healthcare, lighting, locomotives, appliances, and GE Capital, finance. In 2020, GE ranked among the Fortune 500, ''Fortune'' 500 as the 33rd largest firm in the United States by gross revenue. In 2023, the company was ranked 64th in the Forbes Global 2000, ''Forbes'' Global 2000. In 2011, GE ranked among the Fortune 20 as the 14th most profitable company, but later very severely underperformed the market (by about 75%) as its profitability collapsed. Two employees of GE—Irving Langmuir (1932) and Ivar Giaever (1973)—have been awarded the Nobel Prize. From 1986 until 2013, GE was the owner of the NBC television network through its ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Index Register
An index register in a computer's central processing unit, CPU is a processor register (or an assigned memory location) used for pointing to operand addresses during the run of a program. It is useful for stepping through String (computer science), strings and Array data structure, arrays. It can also be used for holding loop iterations and counters. In some Instruction set architecture, architectures it is used for read/writing blocks of memory. Depending on the architecture it may be a dedicated index register or a general-purpose register. Some instruction sets allow more than one index register to be used; in that case additional instruction fields may specify which index registers to use. Generally, the contents of an index register is added to (in some cases subtracted from) an ''immediate'' address (that can be part of the instruction itself or held in another register) to form the "effective" address of the actual data (operand). Special instructions are typically provided ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Batch Processing
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. History The term "batch processing" originates in the traditional classification of methods of production as job production (one-off production), batch production (production of a "batch" of multiple items at once, one stage at a time), and flow production (mass production, all stages in process at once). Early history Early computers were capable of running only one program at a time. Each user had sole control of the machine for a scheduled period of time. They would arrive at the computer with program and data, often on punched paper cards and magnetic or paper tape, and would load their program, run and debug it, and carry off thei ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
GECOS
General Comprehensive Operating System (GCOS, ; originally GECOS, General Electric Comprehensive Operating Supervisor) is a family of operating systems oriented toward the 36-bit GE-600 series and Honeywell 6000 series mainframe computers. The original version of GCOS was developed by General Electric beginning in 1962. The operating system is still used today in its most recent versions (GCOS 7 and GCOS 8) on servers and mainframes produced by Groupe Bull, primarily through emulation, to provide continuity with legacy mainframe environments. GCOS 7 and GCOS 8 are separate branches of the operating system and continue to be developed alongside each other. History GECOS/Honeywell GCOS 3 The GECOS operating system was developed by General Electric for the 36-bit GE-600 series in 1962–1964; GE released GECOS I (with a prototype 635) in April 1965, GECOS II in November 1965 and GECOS III (with time-sharing) in 1967. It bore a close resemblance architecturally to IBM 7090/94 IBSYS, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Time Sharing
In computing, time-sharing is the concurrent sharing of a computing resource among many tasks or users by giving each task or user a small slice of processing time. This quick switch between tasks or users gives the illusion of simultaneous execution. It enables multi-tasking by a single user or enables multiple-user sessions. Developed during the 1960s, its emergence as the prominent model of computing in the 1970s represented a major technological shift in the history of computing. By allowing many users to interact concurrently with a single computer, time-sharing dramatically lowered the cost of providing computing capability, made it possible for individuals and organizations to use a computer without owning one, and promoted the interactive use of computers and the development of new interactive applications. History Batch processing The earliest computers were extremely expensive devices, and very slow. Machines were typically dedicated to a particular set of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interrupt
In digital computers, an interrupt (sometimes referred to as a trap) is a request for the processor to ''interrupt'' currently executing code (when permitted), so that the event can be processed in a timely manner. If the request is accepted, the processor will suspend its current activities, save its state, and execute a function called an '' interrupt handler'' (or an ''interrupt service routine'', ISR) to deal with the event. This interruption is often temporary, allowing the software to resume normal activities after the interrupt handler finishes, although the interrupt could instead indicate a fatal error. Interrupts are commonly used by hardware devices to indicate electronic or physical state changes that require time-sensitive attention. Interrupts are also commonly used to implement computer multitasking and system calls, especially in real-time computing. Systems that use interrupts in these ways are said to be interrupt-driven. History Hardware interrupts wer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Machine Language
In computer programming, machine code is computer code consisting of machine language instructions, which are used to control a computer's central processing unit (CPU). For conventional binary computers, machine code is the binaryOn nonbinary machines it is, e.g., a decimal representation. representation of a computer program that is actually read and interpreted by the computer. A program in machine code consists of a sequence of machine instructions (possibly interspersed with data). Each machine code instruction causes the CPU to perform a specific task. Examples of such tasks include: # Load a word from memory to a CPU register # Execute an arithmetic logic unit (ALU) operation on one or more registers or memory locations # Jump or skip to an instruction that is not the next one In general, each architecture family (e.g., x86, ARM) has its own instruction set architecture (ISA), and hence its own specific machine code language. There are exceptions, such as the V ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Central Processing Unit
A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor, or just processor, is the primary Processor (computing), processor in a given computer. Its electronic circuitry executes Instruction (computing), instructions of a computer program, such as arithmetic, logic, controlling, and input/output (I/O) operations. This role contrasts with that of external components, such as main memory and I/O circuitry, and specialized coprocessors such as graphics processing units (GPUs). The form, CPU design, design, and implementation of CPUs have changed over time, but their fundamental operation remains almost unchanged. Principal components of a CPU include the arithmetic–logic unit (ALU) that performs arithmetic operation, arithmetic and Bitwise operation, logic operations, processor registers that supply operands to the ALU and store the results of ALU operations, and a control unit that orchestrates the #Fetch, fetching (from memory), #Decode, decoding and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Input/output
In computing, input/output (I/O, i/o, or informally io or IO) is the communication between an information processing system, such as a computer, and the outside world, such as another computer system, peripherals, or a human operator. Inputs are the signals or data received by the system and outputs are the signals or data sent from it. The term can also be used as part of an action; to "perform I/O" is to perform an input or output operation. are the pieces of hardware used by a human (or other system) to communicate with a computer. For instance, a keyboard or computer mouse is an input device for a computer, while monitors and printers are output devices. Devices for communication between computers, such as modems and network cards, typically perform both input and output operations. Any interaction with the system by an interactor is an input and the reaction the system responds is called the output. The designation of a device as either input or output depend ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Channel Controller
In computing, channel I/O is a high-performance input/output (I/O) architecture that is implemented in various forms on a number of computer architectures, especially on mainframe computers. In the past, channels were generally implemented with custom devices, variously named channel, I/O processor, I/O controller, I/O synchronizer, or '' DMA controller''. Overview Many I/O tasks can be complex and require logic to be applied to the data to convert formats and other similar duties. In these situations, the simplest solution is to ask the CPU to handle the logic, but because I/O devices are relatively slow, a CPU could waste time waiting for the data from the device. This situation is called 'I/O bound'. Channel architecture avoids this problem by processing some or all of the I/O task without the aid of the CPU by offloading the work to dedicated logic. Channels are logically self-contained, with sufficient logic and working storage to handle I/O tasks. Some are powerful or fle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Twos-complement
Two's complement is the most common method of representing signed (positive, negative, and zero) integers on computers, and more generally, fixed point binary values. Two's complement uses the binary digit with the ''greatest'' value as the ''sign'' to indicate whether the binary number is positive or negative; when the most significant bit is ''1'' the number is signed as negative and when the most significant bit is ''0'' the number is signed as positive. As a result, non-negative numbers are represented as themselves: 6 is 0110, zero is 0000, and −6 is 1010 (the result of applying the bitwise NOT operator to 6 and adding 1). However, while the number of binary bits is fixed throughout a computation it is otherwise arbitrary. Unlike the ones' complement scheme, the two's complement scheme has only one representation for zero. Furthermore, arithmetic implementations can be used on signed as well as unsigned integers and differ only in the integer overflow situations. Proced ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Big-endian
'' Jonathan_Swift.html" ;"title="Gulliver's Travels'' by Jonathan Swift">Gulliver's Travels'' by Jonathan Swift, the novel from which the term was coined In computing, endianness is the order in which bytes within a word (data type), word of digital data are transmitted over a data communication medium or Memory_address, addressed (by rising addresses) in computer memory, counting only byte significance compared to earliness. Endianness is primarily expressed as big-endian (BE) or little-endian (LE), terms introduced by Danny Cohen into computer science for data ordering in an Internet Experiment Note published in 1980. Also published at The adjective ''endian'' has its origin in the writings of 18th century Anglo-Irish writer Jonathan Swift. In the 1726 novel '' Gulliver's Travels'', he portrays the conflict between sects of Lilliputians divided into those breaking the shell of a boiled egg from the big end or from the little end. By analogy, a CPU may read a digital word ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
