Delete comment from: Ken Shirriff's blog
There was a lot more weirdness in that machine than (to parse it correctly). There were two instruction registers in each group, so coroutines (as opposed to subroutines) could be implemented directly. There was a sign bit on each instruction register so you could run programs backward. It was a wonderful playground for gag and obfuscated code in assembly language. One gag program harassed operators by printing obscenities on the console typewriter and then moving to a different group. There was only one display and set of control switches which automatically connected to the active (running) group. So group 1 (say) would print "f you" at the console, the operator would hit "stop" but by then the machine would be running group 2.
The tape drives used vacuum hubs. You put a tape on the hub and the drive would suck the air out of the thin gap between the hub and the reel, sticking it hard without any mechanical lock. Release was problematic, and junior operators (known as "tape apes") would rock the drives back and forth trying to get the tape off.
The system did come with the best COBOL compiler of its era, which is why Honeywell won the USAF Major Air Command upgrade contract in 1964, which is where (Hq Air Training Command) I encountered the machine. In 1966 I joined Honeywell EDP Division and met Henry Schrempf [sp?] who designed the thing.
Nov 23, 2020, 1:05:38 PM
Posted to How "special register groups" invaded computer dictionaries for decades