The Selenia Gp-16 was a
general purpose
General-purpose may refer to:
* General-purpose technology
* General-purpose alternating current, AC electric power supply
* General-purpose autonomous robots
* General-purpose heat source
Law and government
* General-purpose administrative s ...
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, ...
designed by the Italian company
Selenia of
STET group. It was followed by an upgraded version called Gp-160.
History
The Gp-16 was minicomputer designed mainly for industrial customers, whose concept in design was similar to
PDP-8. The design took place in
Rome during the mid-sixties under the supervision of Saverio Rotella, when the production was carried in Fusaro (
Naples) in the second half of that decade.
The most known uses were in control tower in
airports, as done in
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
; a modified upgraded version was used in Gruppi Speciali of
CSELT, the second electromechanical phone switch in Europe. The Gp16 was later adopted also by
Olivetti. However, it never reached a large diffusion because of a small market push from its producing company.
Technical features
Hardware
Gp-16 had:
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*
word length: 16-bit;
*
RAM memory: 8 Kbyte, extensibile to 32 Kbyte (when the CSELT version extended it until 64 Kbyte);
* cycle time: 4 microseconds;
*
ROM
Rom, or ROM may refer to:
Biomechanics and medicine
* Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient
* Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac
* R ...
technology:
magnetic-core memory;
*
input/output 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 ...
s:
punched card reader,
punched tape reader,
teleprinter.
Software
* No true
Operating system;
*
Fortran Compiler;
* Arithmetical calculation Routine;
* Monitor processing system;
*
Assembly language
In computer programming, assembly language (or assembler language, or symbolic machine code), often referred to simply as Assembly and commonly abbreviated as ASM or asm, is any low-level programming language with a very strong correspondence be ...
.
Notes
Bibliography
* Fondazione Adriano Olivetti, ''La cultura informatica in Italia: riflessioni e testimonianze sulle origini: 1950-1970,'' Bollati Boringhieri, 1993.
External links
ENAV: GP-16/GP-160
Minicomputers
16-bit computers