> From: Swift Griggs
>> Much of the architectural concept was shared with IBM 7030 STRETCH
>> (another system worth researching).
> Hmm, I've never heard of it. I'll check it out.
The first supercomputer, IMO. It's an interesting machine, with a variety of
innovations that later became standard: e.g. it has separate instruction and
arithmetic units, with the former being in charge of all fetches, both
instruction and data, as well as executing things like branch instructions;
it also has a primitive form of pipelining ("Interlocks in the look-ahead
unit ensure that nothing is altered permanently until all the preceeding
instructions have been executed successfully.")
Eric has a nice page about it:
https://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/retrocomputing/ibm/stretch/
There's a good book about it:
Werner Buchholz (editor), "Planning a Computer System: Project Stretch",
McGraw-Hill, New York, 1962
Speaking of books, there's also a CDC 6600 book:
Jim E. Thornton, "Design of A Computer: The Control Data 6600",
Scott, Foresman, Glenview, 1970
Really gotta do that Bibliography!
Noel
