The CDC 6000 series is a discontinued family of

mainframe computer A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise ...

s manufactured by

Control Data Corporation Control Data Corporation (CDC) was a mainframe and supercomputer company that in the 1960s was one of the nine major U.S. computer companies, which group included IBM, the Burroughs Corporation, and the Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), the N ...

in the 1960s. It consisted of the CDC 6200, CDC 6300, CDC 6400, CDC 6500,

CDC 6600 The CDC 6600 was the flagship of the 6000 series of mainframe computer systems manufactured by Control Data Corporation. Generally considered to be the first successful supercomputer, it outperformed the industry's prior recordholder, the I ...

and CDC 6700 computers, which were all extremely rapid and efficient for their time. Each is a large, solid-state, general-purpose, digital computer that performs scientific and business data processing as well as

multiprogramming In computing, multitasking is the concurrent execution of multiple tasks (also known as processes) over a certain period of time. New tasks can interrupt already started ones before they finish, instead of waiting for them to end. As a result ...

multiprocessing Multiprocessing (MP) is the use of two or more central processing units (CPUs) within a single computer system. The term also refers to the ability of a system to support more than one processor or the ability to allocate tasks between them. The ...

, Remote Job Entry,

time-sharing In computing, time-sharing is the Concurrency (computer science), concurrent sharing of a computing resource among many tasks or users by giving each Process (computing), task or User (computing), user a small slice of CPU time, processing time. ...

, and

data management Data management comprises all disciplines related to handling data as a valuable resource, it is the practice of managing an organization's data so it can be analyzed for decision making. Concept The concept of data management emerged alongsi ...

tasks under the control of the

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

called SCOPE (Supervisory Control Of Program Execution). By 1970 there also was a time-sharing oriented operating system named KRONOS. They were part of the first generation of

supercomputer A supercomputer is a type of computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer. The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) instead of million instruc ...

s. The 6600 was the flagship of Control Data's 6000 series.

Overview

The CDC 6000 series computers are composed of four main functional devices: * the central memory * one or two high-speed central processors * ten peripheral processors ( Peripheral Processing Unit, or PPU) and * a display console. The 6000 series has a distributed architecture. The family's members differ primarily by the number and kind of central processor(s): * The CDC 6400 is a single CPU with an identical instruction set, but with a single unified arithmetic function unit that can only do one instruction at a time. * The CDC 6500 is a dual-CPU system with two 6400 central processors * The CDC 6600 is a single CPU with 10 functional units that can operate in parallel, each working on an instruction at the same time. * The CDC 6700 is also a dual-CPU system, with a 6600 and a 6400 central processor. Certain features and nomenclature had also been used in the earlier

CDC 3000 The CDC 3000 series ("thirty-six hundred" or "thirty-one hundred") are a family of mainframe computers from Control Data Corporation (CDC). The first member, the CDC 3600, was a 48-bit system introduced in 1963. The same basic design led to the c ...

series: * Arithmetic is ones complement. * The name

COMPASS A compass is a device that shows the cardinal directions used for navigation and geographic orientation. It commonly consists of a magnetized needle or other element, such as a compass card or compass rose, which can pivot to align itself with No ...

was used by CDC for the

assembly language In computing, assembly language (alternatively 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 bet ...

s on both families. * The name SCOPE was used for its operating system implementations on the

3000 3000 or 3000s usually refers to: * 3000 (number), the decimal number * 3000 AD/CE, the first year of the 31st century * 3000 BC(E), a year in the 3rd millennium BC * 3000s AD/CE, a decade, century, millennium in the 4th millennium * 3000s BC(E), ...

and 6000 series."CDC delivered an early version of their SCOPE operating system for the 3600" The only currently (as of 2018) running CDC 6000 series machine, a 6500, has been restored by Living Computers: Museum + Labs It was built in 1967 and used by

Purdue University Purdue University is a Public university#United States, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, United States, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded ...

until 1989 when it was decommissioned and then given to the Chippewa Falls Museum of Industry and Technology before being purchased by

Paul Allen Paul Gardner Allen (January 21, 1953 – October 15, 2018) was an American businessman, computer programmer, and investor. He co-founded Microsoft, Microsoft Corporation with his childhood friend Bill Gates in 1975, which was followed by the ...

for LCM+L.

History

The first member of the CDC 6000 series was the

, designed by

Seymour Cray Seymour Roger Cray (September 28, 1925 – October 5, 1996)
– was an American

James E. Thornton in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. It was introduced in September 1964 and performs up to three million instructions per second, three times faster than the IBM Stretch, the speed champion for the previous couple of years."Designed by Seymour Cray, the CDC 6600 was almost three times faster than the next fastest machine of its day, the IBM 7030 Stretch." It remained the fastest machine for five years until the CDC 7600 was launched. The machine is cooled by

Freon Freon ( ) is a registered trademark of the Chemours Company and generic descriptor for a number of halocarbon products. They are stable, nonflammable, low toxicity gases or liquids which have generally been used as refrigerants and as aerosol p ...

refrigerant. Control Data manufactured about 100 machines of this type, selling for $6 to $10 million each. The next system to be introduced was the CDC 6400, delivered in April 1966. The 6400 central processor is a slower, less expensive implementation with serial processing, rather than the 6600's parallel functional units. All other aspects of the 6400 are identical to the 6600. Then followed a machine with dual 6400-style central processors, the CDC 6500, designed principally by James E. Thornton, in October 1967. And finally, the CDC 6700, with both a 6600-style CPU and a 6400-style CPU, was released in October 1969. Subsequent special edition options were custom-developed for the series, including: * Attaching a second system configured without a Central Processor (numbered 6416 and identified as "Augmented I/O Buffer and Control) to the first; the combined total effectively was 20 peripheral and control processors with 24 channels, and the purpose was to support additional peripherals and "significantly increase the multiprogramming and batch job processing of the 6000 series." (A 30-PPU, 36 channel 6600 machine was operated by Control Data's Software Research Lab during 1971–1973 as the Minneapolis Cybernet host, but this version was never sold commercially.) * Control Data also marketed a CDC 6400 with a smaller number of peripheral processors: ** CDC 6415–7 with seven peripheral processors ** CDC 6415–8 with eight peripheral processors ** CDC 6415–9 with nine peripheral processors

Hardware

Central memory (CM)

In all the CDC 6000 series computers, the central processor communicates with around seven simultaneously active programs ( jobs), which reside in central memory. Instructions from these programs are read into the central processor registers and are executed by the central processor at scheduled intervals. The results are then returned to central memory. Information is stored in central memory in the form of words. The length of each word is 60

binary digit Binary may refer to: Science and technology Mathematics * Binary number, a representation of numbers using only two values (0 and 1) for each digit * Binary function, a function that takes two arguments * Binary operation, a mathematical o ...

s ( bits). The highly efficient address and data control mechanisms involved permit a word to be moved into or out of central memory in as little as 100 nanoseconds.

Extended Core Storage (ECS)

An extended core storage unit (ECS) provides additional memory storage and enhances the powerful computing capabilities of the CDC 6000 series computers. The unit contains interleaved core banks, each one ECS word (488 bits) wide and an 488 bit buffer for each bank. While nominally slower than CM, ECS included a buffer (cache) that in some applications gave ECS better performance than CM. However, with a more common reference pattern the CM was still faster.

Central processor

The central processor is the high-speed arithmetic unit that functions as the workhorse of the computer. It performs the addition, subtraction, and logical operations and all of the multiplication, division, incrementing, indexing, and branching instructions for user programs. Note that in the CDC 6000 architecture, the central processing unit performs no

input/output In computing, input/output (I/O, i/o, or informally io or IO) is the communication between an information processing system, such as a computer, and the outside world, such as another computer system, peripherals, or a human operator. Inputs a ...

(I/O) operations. Input/Output is totally asynchronous, and performed by peripheral processors. A 6000 series CPU contains 24 operating

register Register or registration may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Register (music), the relative "height" or range of a note, melody, part, instrument, etc. * ''Register'', a 2017 album by Travis Miller * Registration (organ), ...

s, designated X0–X7, A0–A7, and B0–B7. The eight X registers are each 60 bits long, and used for most data manipulation—both integer and floating point. The eight B registers are 18 bits long, and generally used for indexing and address storage. Register B0 is hard-wired to always return 0. By software convention, register B1 is generally set to 1. (This often allows the use of 15-bit instructions instead of 30-bit instructions.) The eight 18-bit A registers are 'coupled' to their corresponding X registers: setting an address into any of registers A1 through A5 causes a memory load of the contents of that address into the corresponding X registers. Likewise, setting an address into registers A6 and A7 causes a memory store into that location in memory from X6 or X7. Registers A0 and X0 are not coupled in this way, so can be used as scratch registers. However A0 and X0 are used when addressing CDCs Extended Core Storage (ECS). Instructions are either 15 or 30 bits long, so there can be up to four instructions per 60-bit word. A 60-bit word can contain any combination of 15-bit and 30-bit instructions that fit within the word, but a 30-bit instruction can not wrap to the next word. The op codes are six bits long. The remainder of the instruction is either three three-bit register fields (two operands and one result), or two registers with an 18-bit immediate constant. All instructions are 'register to register'. For example, the following

(assembly language) code loads two values from memory, performs a 60-bit integer add, then stores the result: SA1 X SET REGISTER A1 TO ADDRESS OF X; LOADS X1 FROM THAT ADDRESS SA2 Y SET REGISTER A2 TO ADDRESS OF Y; LOADS X2 FROM THAT ADDRESS IX6 X1+X2 LONG INTEGER ADD REGISTERS X1 AND X2, RESULT INTO X6 SA6 A1 SET REGISTER A6 TO (A1); STORES X6 TO X; THUS, X += Y The central processor used in the CDC 6400 series contains a ''unified arithmetic element'' which performs one machine instruction at a time. Depending on instruction type, an instruction can take anywhere from five

clock cycle In electronics and especially synchronous digital circuits, a clock signal (historically also known as ''logic beat'') is an electronic logic signal (voltage or current) which oscillates between a high and a low state at a constant frequency and ...

s for 18-bit integer arithmetic to as many as 68 clock cycles (60-bit population count). The CDC 6500 is identical to the 6400, but includes two identical 6400 CPUs. Thus the CDC 6500 can nearly double the computational throughput of the machine, although the I/O throughput is still limited by the speed of external I/O devices served by the same 10 PPs/12 Channels. Many CDC customers worked on compute-bound problems. The CDC 6600 computer, like the CDC 6400, has just one central processor. However, its central processor offers much greater efficiency. The processor is divided into 10 individual ''functional units'', each of which was designed for a specific type of operation. All 10 functional units can operate simultaneously, each working on their own operation. The function units provided are: branch, Boolean, shift, long integer add,

floating-point In computing, floating-point arithmetic (FP) is arithmetic on subsets of real numbers formed by a ''significand'' (a Sign (mathematics), signed sequence of a fixed number of digits in some Radix, base) multiplied by an integer power of that ba ...

add, floating-point divide, two floating-point multipliers, and two ''increment'' (18-bit integer add) units. Functional unit latencies are between three clock cycles for increment add and 29 clock cycles for floating-point divide. The 6600 processor can issue a new instruction every clock cycle, assuming that various processor (functional unit, register) resources were available. These resources are tracked by a ''scoreboard'' mechanism. Also contributing to keeping the issue rate high is an ''instruction stack'', which caches the contents of eight instruction words (32 short instructions or 16 long instructions, or a combination). Small loops can reside entirely within the stack, eliminating memory latency from instruction fetches. Both the 6400 and 6600 CPUs have a cycle time of 100 ns (10MHz). Due to the serial nature of the 6400 CPU, its exact speed is heavily dependent on instruction mix, but generally around 1 MIPS. Floating-point additions are fairly fast at 11 clock cycles, however floating-point multiplication is very slow at 57 clock cycles. Thus its floating-point speed will depend heavily on the mix of operations and can be under 200 kFLOPS. The 6600 is faster. With good compiler instruction scheduling, the machine can approach its theoretical peak of 10 MIPS. Floating-point additions take four clock cycles, and floating-point multiplications take 10 clocks (but there are two multiply functional units, so two operations can be processing at the same time.) The 6600 can therefore have a peak floating-point speed of 2-3 MFLOPS. The CDC 6700 computer combines features of the other three computers. Like the CDC 6500, it has two central processors. One is a CDC 6400/CDC 6500 central processor with the unified arithmetic section; the other is the more efficient CDC 6600 central processor. The combination makes the CDC 6700 the fastest and the most powerful of the CDC 6000 series.

Peripheral processors

The central processor shares access to central memory with up to ten peripheral processors (PPs). Each peripheral processor is an individual computer with its own 1 μs memory of 4K 12-bit words. (They are somewhat similar to CDC 160A minicomputers, sharing the 12-bit word length and portions of the instruction set.) While the PPs were designed as an interface to the 12 I/O channels, portions of the Chippewa Operating System (COS), and systems derived from it, e.g., SCOPE, MACE, KRONOS, NOS, and NOS/BE, run on the PPs. Only the PPs have access to the channels and can perform input/output: the transfer of information between central memory and peripheral devices such as disks and

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 magnetic ...

units. They relieve the central processor of all input/output tasks, so that it can perform calculations while the peripheral processors are engaged in input/output and operating system functions. This feature promotes rapid overall processing of user programs. Much of the operating system ran on the PPs, thus leaving the full power of the Central Processor available for user programs. Each peripheral processor can add, subtract, and perform logical operations. Special instructions perform data transfer between processor memory and, via the channels, peripheral devices at up to 1 μs per word. The peripheral processors are collectively implemented as a barrel processor. Each executes routines independently of the others. They are a loose predecessor of bus mastering or

direct memory access Direct memory access (DMA) is a feature of computer systems that allows certain hardware subsystems to access main system computer memory, memory independently of the central processing unit (CPU). Without DMA, when the CPU is using programmed i ...

. Instructions use a six-bit op code, thus leaving six bits for an operand. It is also possible to combine the next word's 12 bits, to form an 18-bit address (the size needed to access the full 131,072 words of Central Memory).

Data channels

For input or output, each peripheral processor accesses a peripheral device over a communication link called a data channel. One peripheral device can be connected to each data channel; however, a channel can be modified with hardware to service more than one device. The data channels have no access to either central or peripheral memory, and rely on programs running in a peripheral processor to access memory or to chain operations. Each peripheral processor can communicate with any peripheral device if another peripheral processor is not using the data channel connected to that device. In other words, only one peripheral processor at a time can use a particular data channel to communicate to a peripheral device. However, a peripheral processor may write data to a channel that a different peripheral processor is reading.

Display console

In addition to communication between peripheral devices and peripheral processors, communication takes place between the computer operator and the operating system. This is made possible by the computer console, which had two

CRT CRT or Crt most commonly refers to: * Cathode-ray tube, a display * Critical race theory, an academic framework of analysis CRT may also refer to: Law * Charitable remainder trust, United States * Civil Resolution Tribunal, Canada * Columbia ...

screens. This display console was a significant departure from conventional computer consoles of the time, which contained hundreds of blinking lights and switches for every state bit in the machine. (See ''

front panel A front panel was used on early electronic computers to display and allow the alteration of the state of the machine's internal CPU register, registers and computer memory, memory. The front panel usually consisted of arrays of electric light, ...

'' for an example.) By comparison, the 6000 series console is an elegant design: simple, fast and reliable. The console screens are

calligraphic Calligraphy () is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instruments. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as "the art of giving form to signs in an exp ...

, not raster based. Analog circuitry steers the electron beams to draw the individual characters on the screen. One of the peripheral processors runs a dedicated program called "DSD" (Dynamic System Display), which drives the console. Coding in DSD needs to be fast as it needs to continually redraw the screen quickly enough to avoid visible flicker. DSD displays information about the system and the jobs in process. The console also includes a keyboard through which the operator can enter requests to modify stored programs and display information about jobs in or awaiting execution. A full-screen editor, called O26 (after the

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

model 026 key punch, with the first character made alphabetic due to operating system restrictions), can be run on the operator console. This

text editor A text editor is a type of computer program that edits plain text. An example of such program is "notepad" software (e.g. Windows Notepad). Text editors are provided with operating systems and software development packages, and can be used to c ...

appeared in 1967—which made it one of the first full-screen editors. (Unfortunately, it took CDC another 15 years to offer FSE, a full-screen editor for normal

users on CDCs Network Operating System.) There are also a variety of games that were written using the operator console. These included BAT (a baseball game), KAL (a

kaleidoscope A kaleidoscope () is an optical instrument with two or more reflecting surfaces (or mirrors) tilted to each other at an angle, so that one or more (parts of) objects on one end of these mirrors are shown as a symmetrical pattern when viewed fro ...

), DOG (

Snoopy Snoopy is an anthropomorphic beagle in the comic strip ''Peanuts'' by American cartoonist Charles M. Schulz. He also appears in all of the ''Peanuts'' films and television specials. Since his debut on October 4, 1950, Snoopy has become one of ...

flying his doghouse across the screens), ADC (

Andy Capp ''Andy Capp'' is a British comic strip created by cartoonist Reg Smythe, seen in the ''Daily Mirror'' and the ''Sunday Mirror'' newspapers since 5 August 1957. Originally a panel (comics), single-panel cartoon, it was later expanded to four ...

strutting across the screens), EYE (changes the screens into giant eyeballs, then winks them), PAC (a

Pac-Man ''Pac-Man,'' originally called in Japan, is a 1980 maze video game developed and published by Namco for arcades. In North America, the game was released by Midway Manufacturing as part of its licensing agreement with Namco America. The pla ...

-like game), a lunar lander simulator, and more.

Minimum configuration

The minimum hardware requirements of a CDC 6000 series computer system consists of the computer, including 32,768 words of central memory storage, any combination of disks, disk packs, or drums to provide 24 million characters of mass storage, a punched card reader, punched card punch, printer with controllers, and two seven-track magnetic tape units. Larger systems could be obtained by including optional equipment such as additional central memory, extended core storage (ECS), additional disk or drum units, card readers, punches, printers, and tape units. Graphic

plotter A plotter is a machine that produces vector graphics drawings. Plotters draw lines on paper using a pen, or in some applications, use a knife to cut a material like Polyvinyl chloride, vinyl or leather. In the latter case, they are sometimes k ...

s and

microfilm A microform is a scaled-down reproduction of a document, typically either photographic film or paper, made for the purposes of transmission, storage, reading, and printing. Microform images are commonly reduced to about 4% or of the original d ...

recorders were also available.

Peripherals

* CDC 405 Card Reader - Unit reads 80-column cards at 1200 cards a minute and 51-column cards at 1600 cards per minute. Each tray holds 4000 cards to reduce the rate of required loading. * CDC 6602/6612 Console Display * CDC 6603 Disk System * CDC 606 Magnetic Tape Transports (7-track, IBM compatible) * CDC 626 Magnetic Tape Transports (14-track) * CDC 6671 Communications Multiplexer - supported up to 16 synchronous data connections up to 4800 bit/s each for Remote Job Entry * CDC 6676 Communications Multiplexer - supported up to 64 asynchronous data connections up to 300 bit/s each for

timesharing In computing, time-sharing is the concurrent sharing of a computing resource among many tasks or users by giving each task or user a small slice of processing time. This quick switch between tasks or users gives the illusion of simultaneous ...

access. * CDC 6682/6683 Satellite Coupler * CDC 6681 Data Channel Converter

Versions

The CDC 6600 was the flagship. The CDC 6400 was a slower, lower-performance CPU that cost significantly less. The CDC 6500 was a dual CPU 6400, with two CPUs but only one set of I/O PPs, designed for computation-bound problems. The CDC 6700 was also a dual CPU machine, which had one 6600 CPU and one 6400 CPU. The CDC 6415 was an even cheaper and slower machine; it had a 6400 CPU but was available with only seven, eight, or nine PPUs instead of the normal ten. The CDC 6416 was an upgrade that could be added to a 6000 series machine; it added an extra PPU bank, giving a total of 20 PPUs and 24 channels, designed for significantly improved I/O performance.

The 6600

The CDC 6600 is the flagship

mainframe A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterpris ...

of the 6000 series of computer systems manufactured by

. Generally considered to be the first successful

, it outperformed its fastest predecessor, the

IBM 7030 Stretch The IBM 7030, also known as Stretch, was IBM's first transistorized supercomputer. It was the fastest computer in the world from 1961 until the first CDC 6600 became operational in 1964."Designed by Seymour Cray, the CDC 6600 was almost three tim ...

, by a factor of three. With performance of up to three megaFLOPS, the CDC 6600, of which about 100 were sold, was the world's fastest computer from 1964 to 1969, when it relinquished that status to its successor, the CDC 7600. The CDC 6600 anticipated the

RISC In electronics and computer science, a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) is a computer architecture designed to simplify the individual instructions given to the computer to accomplish tasks. Compared to the instructions given to a comp ...

design philosophy and, unusually, employed a ones'-complement representation of integers. Its successors would continue the architectural tradition for more than 30 years until the late 1980s, and were the last chips designed with ones'-complement integers. The CDC 6600 was also the first widespread computer to include a load–store architecture, with the writing to its address registers triggering memory load or store of data from its data registers. The first CDC 6600s were delivered in 1965 to the Livermore and Los Alamos National Labs (managed by the University of California). Serial #4 went to the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences Courant Institute at NYU in Greenwich Village, New York CIty. The first delivery outside the US went to

CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in Meyrin, western suburb of Gene ...

laboratory near

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

, where it was used to analyse the two to three million photographs of bubble-chamber tracks that CERN experiments were producing every year. In 1966 another CDC 6600 was delivered to the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, part of the

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkele ...

, where it was used for the analysis of nuclear events photographed inside the Alvarez bubble chamber. The

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public university, public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 stud ...

had one delivered for its Computer Science and Mathematics Departments, and installed underground on its main campus, tucked into a hillside with one side exposed, for cooling efficiency. A CDC 6600 is on display at the

Computer History Museum The Computer History Museum (CHM) is a computer museum in Mountain View, California. The museum presents stories and artifacts of Silicon Valley and the Information Age, and explores the Digital Revolution, computing revolution and its impact ...

Mountain View, California Mountain View is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States, part of the San Francisco Bay Area. Named for its views of the Santa Cruz Mountains, the population was 82,376 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Mountain V ...

The 6400

The CDC 6400, a member of the CDC 6000 series, is a mainframe computer made by Control Data Corporation in the 1960s. The central processing unit was architecturally compatible with the

. In contrast to the 6600, which had 10 parallel functional units which could work on multiple instructions at the same time, the 6400 had a unified arithmetic unit, which could only work on a single instruction at a time. This resulted in a slower, lower-performance CPU, but one that cost significantly less. Memory, peripheral processor-based

(I/O), and peripherals were otherwise identical to the 6600. In December 1966, at

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkele ...

, a CDC 6400 system was put into operation as an academic computing system (December 1966 to August 1982). In 1966, the Computing Center () of the

RWTH Aachen University RWTH Aachen University (), in German ''Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen'', is a German public research university located in Aachen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With more than 47,000 students enrolled in 144 study prog ...

acquired a CDC 6400, the first

Control Data Control Data Corporation (CDC) was a mainframe and supercomputer company that in the 1960s was one of the nine major U.S. computer A computer is a machine that can be Computer programming, programmed to automatically Execution (computing), ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

and the second one in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

after the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). It served the entire university also by 64 remote-line teletypes (TTY) until it was replaced by a CDC Cyber 175 computer in 1976. File:Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-F031433-0011, Aachen, Technische Hochschule, Rechenzentrum.jpg, Operator console of the CDC 6400 with four magnetic tape memory units in the background with a magnetic tape controller unit in front of them at the Rechenzentrum (Computer Center) of

(1970). File:Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-F031433-0012, Aachen, Technische Hochschule, Rechenzentrum.jpg, Seven-track magnetic tape memory units (CDC 604) at the Rechenzentrum (Computer Center) of RWTH Aachen University, Germany (1970) File:CDC 6400 US Navy.jpg, CDC 6400 used by the US Navy

Dual CPU systems

The 6500

The CDC 6500, which features a dual CPU 6400, is the third supercomputer in the 6000 series manufactured by the

and designed by

pioneer

Seymour Cray Seymour Roger Cray (September 28, 1925 – October 5, 1996)
– was an American

- installed in 1967 at the oldest Computer Science department in the country, established in 1962. *

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State or MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan, United States. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State o ...

- bought in 1968, meant to replace its

CDC 3600 The CDC 3000 series ("thirty-six hundred" or "thirty-one hundred") are a family of mainframe computer, mainframe computers from Control Data Corporation (CDC). The first member, the CDC 3600, was a 48-bit computing, 48-bit system introduced in 196 ...

, and it was the only academic mainframe on campus. *

- upgraded from a 6400 to a 6500 in April 1969. * the technical lab at the Patrick Air Force Base in 1978. * the Laboratory of Computing Techniques and Automation in the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (USSR) - originally bought CDC 6200 in 1972, later upgraded to 6500, retired in 1995 *

University of Colorado Boulder The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado, United States. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University o ...

File:LCM - CDC 501 printer and other equipment - 01.jpg, CDC 6500 (right) and other equipment File:LCM - CDC 6500 detail 02.jpg, Detailed image of the CDC 6500 at LCM+L File:LCM - CDC 6500 detail 01.jpg, Detailed image of the CDC 6500 at LCM+L

The 6700

Composed of a 6600 and a 6400, the CDC 6700 was the most powerful of the 6000 series.

Notes

References

CONTROL DATA 6400/6500/6600 Computer Systems Reference Manual, Publication No. 60100000 D, 1967
# CONTROL DATA 6400/6500/6600/6700 Computer Systems, SCOPE 3.3 User's Guide, Publication No. 60252700 A, 1970
CONTROL DATA 6400/6500/6600/6700 Computer Systems, SCOPE Reference Manual, Publication No. 60305200, 1971

Computer history on CDC 6600

External links

Neil R. Lincoln with 18 Control Data Corporation (CDC) engineers on computer architecture and design

Charles Babbage Institute The IT History Society (ITHS) is an organization that supports the history and scholarship of information technology by encouraging, fostering, and facilitating archival and historical research. Formerly known as the Charles Babbage Foundation, ...

, University of Minnesota. Engineers include Robert Moe, Wayne Specker, Dennis Grinna, Tom Rowan, Maurice Hutson, Curt Alexander, Don Pagelkopf, Maris Bergmanis, Dolan Toth, Chuck Hawley, Larry Krueger, Mike Pavlov, Dave Resnick, Howard Krohn, Bill Bhend, Kent Steiner, Raymon Kort, and Neil R. Lincoln. Discussion topics include

CDC 1604 The CDC 1604 is a 48-bit computer designed and manufactured by Seymour Cray and his team at the Control Data Corporation (CDC). The 1604 is known as one of the first commercially successful transistorized computers. (The IBM 7090 was delivered ...

, CDC 7600, and

Seymour Cray Seymour Roger Cray (September 28, 1925 – October 5, 1996)
– was an American

CONTROL DATA 6400/6500/6600 COMPUTER SYSTEMS Reference Manual
* 2016 GeekWire articl
Resurrected! Paul Allen's tech team brings 50-year-old supercomputer back from the dead
* 201
GeekWire article on the restoration of a CDC 6500 at the
LCM.
Request a login
to the working CDC 6500 at Living Computers: Museum + Labs, one of the computers online at

's collection of timesharing and interactive computers. {{DEFAULTSORT:Cdc 6000 Series 6000 series Supercomputers 60-bit computers 12-bit computers Control Data Corporation mainframe computers Transistorized computers Control Data Corporation Computer-related introductions in 1964

Overview

History

Hardware

Central memory (CM)

Extended Core Storage (ECS)

Central processor

Peripheral processors

Data channels

Display console

Minimum configuration

Peripherals

Versions

The 6600

The 6400

Dual CPU systems

The 6500

The 6700

See also

Notes

References

External links