Thank you so much, Paul. Much appreciated!
-- Dave
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From hf.intel.com!prp Tue Oct 7 09:19:49 1997
From: Paul Pierce <prp_at_hf.intel.com>
To: Dave Fafarman <davef_at_wesco.com>, classiccmp_at_u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: Question -- IBM 704
Dave,
>Hello. I wonder if you might happen to know what the word length (bits)
>was for the IBM 704?
The IBM 700/7000 scientific computers (701, 704, 709, 7090, 7094, 7044
etc.) had a 36-bit word. Number representation is binary sign/magnitude.
From the 704 on the instruction size is 36 bits and there is hardware
floating point. It is an accumulator architecture derived from Von
Neumann's IAS machine. Programmer visible registers are an accumulator
(38 bits), multiplier/quotient register (36 bits) and 3 index registers
(15 bits.) It had 8K to 32K words of core memory. Mass storage was
magnetic tape or punched cards.
Web references:
IBM 704 Manual (selected pages) -
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/brochure/images/manuals/IBM_704/IBM_704.html
Von Neumann and the IAS -
http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/VonNeumann.html
Paul Pierce
http://www.teleport.com/~prp/collect
Received on Tue Oct 07 1997 - 11:37:03 BST