The DATAmatic 1000 is an obsolete computer system from Honeywell introduced in 1957. It uses vacuum tubes and crystal

diode A diode is a two-terminal electronic component that conducts current primarily in one direction (asymmetric conductance); it has low (ideally zero) resistance in one direction, and high (ideally infinite) resistance in the other. A diode ...

s for logic, and featured a unique

magnetic tape Magnetic tape is a medium for magnetic storage made of a thin, magnetizable coating on a long, narrow strip of plastic film. It was developed in Germany in 1928, based on the earlier magnetic wire recording from Denmark. Devices that use magne ...

format for storage. The CPU uses a 48-bit word (plus four check bits). A word can hold 12

decimal The decimal numeral system (also called the base-ten positional numeral system and denary or decanary) is the standard system for denoting integer and non-integer numbers. It is the extension to non-integer numbers of the Hindu–Arabic numeral ...

digits (11 digits plus sign) or 8 six-bit alphanumeric characters. The system includes

magnetic core A magnetic core is a piece of magnetic material with a high magnetic permeability used to confine and guide magnetic fields in electrical, electromechanical and magnetic devices such as electromagnets, transformers, electric motors, generators, in ...

storage of 2000 words or 24,000 digits in two banks, called "High-Speed Memory." Words in High-Speed Memory are also called "registers" in the documentation. The system also includes two input and two output tape buffer storage units of 62 words (744 digits) each. The instructions are three address and all operations are storage-to-storage.

History

Datamatic Corporation was established in 1954 as a joint venture of Raytheon and Honeywell. In 1955 Honeywell bought out Raytheon's interest and the company became known as "Honeywell DATAmatic." Later Datamatic was renamed Honeywell Information Systems (HIS).

Tape format

The DATAmatic uses long reels of wide magnetic tape. The tape format uses 36 tracks ("channels")—31 data and 5 for checking. Data is recorded as blocks of 62 words. Within a block two words are recorded serially on each of the 31 tracks. A full reel of tape can contain 50,000 blocks (37,200,000 words). Data transfer rate is 60,000 digits per second. A DATAmatic 1000 system can attach up to 100 tape units. When the tape is initially written data is recorded only in alternate blocks. When the end of the reel is reached the tape is recorded in reverse in previously unused blocks. This eliminates a rewind operation when reading or writing full reels. The format allows individual blocks to be rewritten in place.

Other peripherals

Standard card, paper tape, and line printer output was via offline input and output converters that wrote or read magnetic tape. Available

peripheral A peripheral or peripheral device is an auxiliary device used to put information into and get information out of a computer. The term ''peripheral device'' refers to all hardware components that are attached to a computer and are controlled by the ...

devices included: * Punched card reader, standard 80-column punched cards, 900 cards per minute * Punched tape reader, 60 characters per second * Line printer, 900 lines per minute * Punched card output – 100 cards per minute

Staffing

Typical staffing for a DATAmatic 1000 installation (per shift) might be: * Supervisors 1 * Analysts 5 * Programmers 11 * Coders 2 * Clerks 3 * Operators 2 * In-Output Operators 6 * Tape Handlers 2 (Bank of Boston, 1961)

References

External links

A THIRD SURVEY OF DOMESTIC ELECTRONIC DIGITAL COMPUTING SYSTEMS

Honeywell’s First Computer: The Datamatic-1000
{{Compu-hardware-stub Computer-related introductions in 1957 Vacuum tube computers Honeywell computers 48-bit computers