The Honeywell 316 was a popular

16-bit 16-bit microcomputers are microcomputers that use 16-bit microprocessors. A 16-bit register can store 216 different values. The range of integer values that can be stored in 16 bits depends on the integer representation used. With the two ...

minicomputer A minicomputer, or colloquially mini, is a class of smaller general purpose computers that developed in the mid-1960s and sold at a much lower price than mainframe and mid-size computers from IBM and its direct competitors. In a 1970 survey, ' ...

built by

Honeywell Honeywell International Inc. is an American publicly traded, multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. It primarily operates in four areas of business: aerospace, building technologies, performance ma ...

starting in 1969. It is part of the Series 16, which includes the Models 116 (1965, discrete), 316 (1969), 416 (1966), 516 (1966) and DDP-716 (1969). They were commonly used for data acquisition and control, remote message concentration, clinical laboratory systems, Remote Job Entry and

time-sharing In computing, time-sharing is the sharing of a computing resource among many users at the same time by means of multiprogramming and multi-tasking.DEC Timesharing (1965), by Peter Clark, The DEC Professional, Volume 1, Number 1 Its emergence ...

. The Series-16 computers are all based on the DDP-116 designed by Gardner Hendrie at Computer Control Company, Inc. (3C) in 1964. The 516 and later the 316 were used as

Interface Message Processor The Interface Message Processor (IMP) was the packet switching node used to interconnect participant networks to the ARPANET from the late 1960s to 1989. It was the first generation of gateways, which are known today as routers. An IMP was a ...

s (IMP) for the American

ARPANET The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the first wide-area packet-switched network with distributed control and one of the first networks to implement the TCP/IP protocol suite. Both technologies became the technical fou ...

and the British NPL Network.

History

Computer Control Company Computer Control Company, Inc. (1953–1966), informally known as 3C, was a pioneering minicomputer company known for its DDP-series (Digital Data Processor) computers, notably: *DDP-24 24-bit (1963) *DDP-224 24-bit (1965) *DDP-116 16-bit (1965) *D ...

developed a computer series named Digital Data Processor, of which it built two models: * DDP-116 - the first of the Series 16 * DDP-124 - part of a trio of 24-bit systems: DDP-24, 124, 224. Honeywell bought the company after the 24 trio, and built the balance of the Series 16. The H-316 was used by

Charles H. Moore Charles Havice Moore II (born 9 September 1938), better known as Chuck Moore, is an American computer engineer and programmer, best known for inventing the Forth programming language in 1968. He cofounded FORTH, Inc., with Elizabeth Rather in ...

to develop the first complete, stand-alone implementation of

Forth Forth or FORTH may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''forth'' magazine, an Internet magazine * ''Forth'' (album), by The Verve, 2008 * ''Forth'', a 2011 album by Proto-Kaw * Radio Forth, a group of independent local radio stations in Scotla ...

at NRAO. The Honeywell 516 was used in the NPL network, and the 516 and later the 316 were used as

s (IMP) for the

. It could also be configured as a Terminal IMP (TIP), which added support for up to 63 teletype machines through a multi-line controller. The original

Prime A prime number (or a prime) is a natural number greater than 1 that is not a product of two smaller natural numbers. A natural number greater than 1 that is not prime is called a composite number. For example, 5 is prime because the only ways ...

computers were designed to be compatible with the Series-16 minicomputers. The Honeywell 316 also had industrial applications. A 316 was used at

Bradwell nuclear power station Bradwell nuclear power station is a decommissioned Magnox-design nuclear power station located on the Dengie peninsula at the mouth of the River Blackwater, Essex. In 2019, it was the first nuclear power station in the UK to be placed into long- ...

Essex Essex () is a Ceremonial counties of England, county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the Riv ...

as the primary reactor temperature-monitoring computer until summer 2000, when the internal 160k disk failed. Two

PDP-11/70 The PDP-11 is a series of 16-bit minicomputers sold by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) from 1970 into the 1990s, one of a set of products in the Programmed Data Processor (PDP) series. In total, around 600,000 PDP-11s of all models were sol ...

s, which had previously been secondary monitors, were moved to primary.

Hardware description

The 316 succeeded the earlier DDP-516 model and was promoted by Honeywell as suitable for industrial process control, data-acquisition systems, and as a communications concentrator and processor. The computer processor was made from small-scale integration DTL monolithic silicon

integrated circuit An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a microchip) is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece (or "chip") of semiconductor material, usually silicon. Large numbers of tiny ...

s. Most parts of the system operated at 2.5 MHz, and some elements were clocked at 5 MHz. The computer was a bitwise-parallel 2's complement system with 16-bit word length. The

instruction set In computer science, an instruction set architecture (ISA), also called computer architecture, is an abstract model of a computer. A device that executes instructions described by that ISA, such as a central processing unit (CPU), is called an ...

was a single-address type with an index register. Initially released with a capacity of 4096 through 16,384 words of memory, later expansion options allowed increasing memory space to 32,768 words. Memory cycle time was 1.6 microseconds; an integer register-to-register "add" instruction took 3.2 microseconds. An optional hardware arithmetic option was available to implement integer multiply and divide, double-precision load and store, and double-precision (31-bit) integer addition and subtraction operations. It also provided a normalization operation, assisting implementation of software

floating-point In computing, floating-point arithmetic (FP) is arithmetic that represents real numbers approximately, using an integer with a fixed precision, called the significand, scaled by an integer exponent of a fixed base. For example, 12.345 can ...

operations. The programmers' model of the H-316 consisted of the following registers: * The 16-bit A register was the primary arithmetic and logic accumulator. * The 16-bit B register was used for double-length arithmetic operations. * The 16-bit program counter holds the address of the next instruction. * A carry flag indicated arithmetic overflow. * A 16-bit X index register was also provided for modification of the address of operands. The

had 72 arithmetic, logic, I/O and flow-control instructions. Input/output instructions used the A register and separate input and output 16-bit buses. A 10-bit I/O control bus, consisting of 6 bits of device address information and 4 bits of function selection, was used. The basic processor had a single interrupt signal line, and an option provided up to 48 interrupts. In addition to a front-panel display of lights and toggle switches, the system supported different types of input/output devices. A

Teletype Model 33 The Teletype Model 33 is an electromechanical teleprinter designed for light-duty office use. It is less rugged and cost less than earlier Teletype machines. The Teletype Corporation introduced the Model 33 as a commercial product in 1963 af ...

ASR teleprinter could be used as a console I/O device and (in the most basic systems) to load and store data to

paper tape Five- and eight-hole punched paper tape Paper tape reader on the Harwell computer with a small piece of five-hole tape connected in a circle – creating a physical program loop Punched tape or perforated paper tape is a form of data storage ...

. Smaller systems typically used a high-speed paper-tape reader and punch for data storage. The Honeywell family of peripherals included card readers and punches, line printers, magnetic tape, and both fixed-head and removable hard disk drives. A rack-mounted configuration weighed around and used 475 watts of power. Honeywell advertised the system as the first minicomputer selling for less than $10,000. The Honeywell 316 has the distinction of being the first computer displayed at a computer show with semiconductor

RAM Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to: Animals * A male sheep * Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish People * Ram (given name) * Ram (surname) * Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director * RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch * ...

memory. In 1972, a Honeywell 316 was displayed with a semiconductor RAM memory board (they used core memory previously). It was never placed into production, as DTL was too power-hungry to survive much longer. Honeywell knew that the same technology that enabled the production of RAM spelled the end of DTL computers, and wanted to show that the company was cutting edge. File:Honeywell-316-01.jpg, Front panel of H316 in a desktop case File:Honeywell H316 front.jpg, Rack-mounted version of H316

System software

Honeywell provided up to 500 software packages that could run on the H-316 processor. A FORTRAN IV compiler was available, as well as an assembler, real-time disk operating systems and system utilities and libraries.

Kitchen Computer

The Honeywell Kitchen Computer, or H316 pedestal model, of 1969 was a short-lived product offered by

Neiman Marcus Neiman Marcus Group, Inc. is an American integrated luxury retailer headquartered in Dallas, Texas, which owns Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman, Horchow, and Last Call. Since September 2021, NMG has been owned by a group of investment compani ...

as one of a continuing series of extravagant gift ideas. It was offered for US$10,000 (), weighed over 100 pounds (over 45 kg) and was advertised as useful for storing recipes. The imagined uses of the Honeywell Kitchen Computer also included assistance with meal planning and balancing the family checkbook – the marketing of which included highly traditional and patronizing representations of housewives. Reading or entering these recipes would have been nearly impossible for the average intended user, since the

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine f ...

required the user to complete a two-week course just to learn how to program the device, using only toggle-switch input and binary-light output. It had a built-in cutting board and had a few recipes built in. No evidence has been found that any Honeywell Kitchen Computers were ever sold. The full text of the Neiman-Marcus Advertisement reads: Although a fantasy gift, the Kitchen Computer represented the first time a computer was offered as a consumer product.

References

External links