The Nord-100 was a

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 mos ...

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, ...

series made by

Norsk Data Norsk Data was a minicomputer manufacturer located in Oslo, Norway. Existing from 1967 to 1998, it had its most active period from the early 1970s to the late 1980s. At the company's peak in 1987, it was the second largest company in Norway and em ...

, introduced in 1979. It shipped with the

Sintran III Sintran III is a real-time, multitasking, multi-user operating system used with Norsk Data minicomputers from 1974. Unlike its predecessors Sintran I and II, it was written entirely by Norsk Data, in Nord Programming Language (Nord PL, NPL), ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

, and the architecture was based on, and backward compatible with, the

Nord-10 Nord-10 was a medium-sized general-purpose 16-bit computing, 16-bit minicomputer designed for multilingual time-sharing applications and for real-time computing, real-time multi-program systems, produced by Norsk Data. It was introduced in 1973. T ...

line. The Nord-100 was originally named the Nord-10/M (''M'' for ''Micro'') as a bit sliced OEM processor. The board was laid out, finished, and tested when they realized that the

central processing unit A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, an ...

(CPU) was far faster than the Nord-10/S. The result was that all the marketing material for the new NORD-10/M was discarded, the board was rechristened the Nord-100, and extensively advertised as the successor of the Nord-10 line. Later, in an effort to internationalize their line, the machine was renamed ''ND-100''.

Performance

CPU

The ND-100 line used a custom processor, and like the

PDP-11 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 sold, ...

line, the CPU decided the name of the computer. *Nord-100/CE, Commercial Extended, with decimal arithmetic instructions (The decimal instruction set was later renamed CX) *ND-110, incrementally improved ND-100 *ND-110/CX, an ND-110 with decimal instructions *ND-120/CX, full redesign The ND-100 line was machine-instruction compatible with the Nord-10 line, except for some ''extended instructions'', all in supervisor mode, mostly used by the operating system. Like most processors of its time, the native bit grouping was

octal The octal numeral system, or oct for short, is the radix, base-8 number system, and uses the Numerical digit, digits 0 to 7. This is to say that 10octal represents eight and 100octal represents sixty-four. However, English, like most languages, ...

, despite the 16-bit word length. The ND-100 series had a

microcode In processor design, microcode (μcode) is a technique that interposes a layer of computer organization between the central processing unit (CPU) hardware and the programmer-visible instruction set architecture of a computer. Microcode is a laye ...

d CPU, with downloadable microcode, and was considered a

complex instruction set computer A complex instruction set computer (CISC ) is a computer architecture in which single instructions can execute several low-level operations (such as a load from memory, an arithmetic operation, and a memory store) or are capable of multi-step ...

(CISC) processor.

ND-100

The ND-100 was implemented using

medium-scale integration 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 ...

(MSI) logic and bit-slice processors. The ND-100 was frequently sold together with a

memory management unit A memory management unit (MMU), sometimes called paged memory management unit (PMMU), is a computer hardware unit having all memory references passed through itself, primarily performing the translation of virtual memory addresses to physical ad ...

card, the MMS. The combined power use of these boards was 90 watts. The boards would usually occupy slots 2 and 3, for the CPU and MMS, respectively. Slot 1 was reserved for the Tracer, a hardware

debugger A debugger or debugging tool is a computer program used to software testing, test and debugging, debug other programs (the "target" program). The main use of a debugger is to run the target program under controlled conditions that permit the pr ...

system.

ND-100/CE

The CE stood for Commercial Extended. The processor was upgraded by replacing the microcode PROM. It added instruction for decimal arithmetic and conversion, stack instructions, segment-change instructions used by the OS, a block move, test-and-set, and a read-without-cache instruction.

ND-110

The ND-110 was an incremental improvement over the ND-100. The ND-110 combined the memory management system and CPU, formerly separate cards, on one board. The single CPU/MMS board was plugged into the memory management board slot, usually numbered 3. Power consumption was reduced from 90 watts to 60. The ND-110 made extensive use of

Programmable Array Logic Programmable Array Logic (PAL) is a family of programmable logic device semiconductors used to implement logic functions in digital circuits introduced by Monolithic Memories, Inc. (MMI) in March 1978. Introductory advertisement on PAL (Progra ...

(PALs) and

gate array A gate array is an approach to the design and manufacture of application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) using a prefabricated chip with components that are later interconnected into logic devices (e.g. NAND gates, flip-flops, etc.) according ...

s, with ''semi-custom''

Very Large Scale Integration Very large-scale integration (VLSI) is the process of creating an integrated circuit (IC) by combining millions or billions of MOS transistors onto a single chip. VLSI began in the 1970s when MOS integrated circuit (Metal Oxide Semiconductor) c ...

(VLSI) chips. The ND-110 had three gate arrays: * The Micro Instruction Controller, the MIC, also known as RMIC, for ''Rask MIC'' (''Speedy MIC''). It replaced three 74S482 sequencers and about 30 other ICs. * The Arithmetical and Logical Unit gate array ( ALU, also known as the ''BUFALU''). Replaced four Am2901 bit-slice processors, and some added registers like the data bus register the general purpose register, and the internal register block. * The Micro Address Controller (The MAC, also called RMAC, for ''Rask MAC'' (''Speedy MAC''). It implemented hardware address arithmetic, which in the ND-100 had been done in microcode. Along with the macro-instruction cache memory also in the ND-100, the ND-110 had a unique implementation of cache memory on the micro-instruction level. The step termed ''mapping'' in the ND-100 was then avoided because the first micro-instruction word of a macro-instruction was written into the control store cache. Unlike the ND-100 CPU, it handled synchronous interrupts as traps, similar to how it was handled by the ND-500. The

control store A control store is the part of a CPU's control unit that stores the CPU's microprogram. It is usually accessed by a microsequencer. A control store implementation whose contents are unalterable is known as a Read Only Memory (ROM) or Read Only Sto ...

consisted of 4K x 4 bit 40ns ''

static random-access memory Static random-access memory (static RAM or SRAM) is a type of random-access memory (RAM) that uses latching circuitry (flip-flop) to store each bit. SRAM is volatile memory; data is lost when power is removed. The term ''static'' differen ...

'' (SRAM) chips. This meant that the control store was writable. It was loaded at power up and Master Clear from two 32Kx8 bit ''erasable programmable read-only memory'' (

EPROM An EPROM (rarely EROM), or erasable programmable read-only memory, is a type of programmable read-only memory (PROM) chip that retains its data when its power supply is switched off. Computer memory that can retrieve stored data after a power s ...

) units. The CPU clock and the bus arbitration network were implemented using 15ns PALs. The main oscillator was a 39.3216 MHz crystal oscillator.

ND-110/CX

This was the ND-110 with the CX microcode

programmable read-only memory A programmable read-only memory (PROM) is a form of digital memory where the contents can be changed once after manufacture of the device. The data is then permanent and cannot be changed. It is one type of read-only memory (ROM). PROMs are used ...

(PROM). The added instructions were the same as the /CE.

ND-120/CX

The ND-120 CPU was a complete reimplementation on an LSI chip (The so-called

Delilah Delilah ( ; , meaning "delicate";Gesenius's ''Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon'' ar, دليلة, Dalīlah; grc, label=Greek, Δαλιδά, Dalidá) is a woman mentioned in the sixteenth chapter of the Book of Judges in the Hebrew Bible. She is loved b ...

chip), and was originally intended to be sold as the ''ND-1000'', to reflect the technology change, which paralleled the change from the

ND-500 The ND-500 was a 32-bit superminicomputer delivered in 1981 by Norsk Data. It relied on a ND-100 to do housekeeping tasks and run the OS, SINTRAN III. A configuration could feature up to four ND-500 CPUs in a shared-memory configuration. Hardwa ...

series to the ND-5000 (codenamed

Samson Samson (; , '' he, Šīmšōn, label= none'', "man of the sun") was the last of the judges of the ancient Israelites mentioned in the Book of Judges (chapters 13 to 16) and one of the last leaders who "judged" Israel before the institution o ...

). The Samson/Delilah naming scheme may reflect that around the time of the development of the ND-120, it was increasingly clear that the mixed 16/32-bit architecture was a bottleneck for the ND-500(0) architecture; Internal technical documentation used at Norsk Data for the Delilah chip has a drawing of a grinning woman with hair in her clenched fist.

References

External links

* * {{Norsk Data Norsk Data minicomputers 16-bit computers