The engineering design of the stretch computer

ABSTRACT

The Stretch Computer project was started in order to achieve two orders of magnitude of improvement in performance over the then existing 704. Although this computer, like the 704, is aimed at scientific problems such as reactor design, hydrodynamics problems, partial differential equations etc., its instruction set and organization are such that it can handle with ease data-processing problems normally associated with commercial applications, such as processing of alphanumeric fields, sorting, and decimal arithmetic.

REFERENCES

• 1: S. W. Dunwell, Design objectives for the IBM stretch computer, Papers and discussions presented at the December 10-12, 1956, eastern joint computer conference: New developments in computers, p.20-22, December 10-12, 1956, New York, New York [doi>10.1145/1455533.1455540]
• 2: W. Buchholz, The selection of an instruction language, Proceedings of the May 6-8, 1958, western joint computer conference: contrasts in computers, May 06-08, 1958, Los Angeles, California [doi>10.1145/1457769.1457804]
• 3: F. P. Brooks, Jr, A program-controlled program interruption system, Papers and discussions presented at the December 9-13, 1957, eastern joint computer conference: Computers with deadlines to meet, p.128-132, December 09-13, 1957, Washington, D.C. [doi>10.1145/1457720.1457743]
• 4: fr4 G. A. Blaauw, "Indexing and Control-Word Techniques," IBM Journal, July 1959.
• 5: fr5 F. P. Brooks, Jr. et al; "Processing Data in Bits and Pieces," Trans. IRE on Electronic Computers, June 1959.
• 6: fr6 J. E. Robertson, "A New Class of Digital Division Methods," Trans. IRE on Electronic Computers, vol. EC-7, pp. 218-222; Sept. 1958.