Honeywell 316
Encyclopedia
The Honeywell 316 was a popular 16-bit
minicomputer
built by Honeywell
starting in 1969. It is part of the Series 16 which includes the Models 116, 316, 416, 516 and 716. They were commonly used for data acquisition and control, remote message concentration, clinical laboratory systems and time-sharing. The Series 16 computers are all based on the DDP-116 designed by Gardner Hendrie at Computer Control Company, Inc.
(3C) in 1964.
The H-316 was used by Charles H. Moore
to develop the first complete, stand-alone implementation of Forth at NRAO
. They were used as ARPANET
Interface Message Processor
s (IMP) but 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 computer
s were designed to be compatible with the Series 16 minicomputers.
monolithic integrated circuit
s. Most parts of the system operated at 2.5 MHZ but 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
was a single-address type with an index register. Initially released with a capacity of 4096 through 16,385 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 extension was available to implement arithmetic on single- and double-precision floating point
values; the basic processor relied on software to carry out floating point calculations.
The programmer's model of the H/316 consisted of the following registers:
The instruction set
had 72 arithmetic, logic, I/O and program 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, but 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. One or more Teletype
Model 33 ASR teleprinters could be used as console I/O devices, and to load and store data to paper tape. Card readers and punches could also be included. The Honeywell family of peripherals included magnetic tape, fixed disk with a capacity of 3.6 million bytes, and the drum stored 196 thousand bytes.
A rack-mounted configuration weighed around 150 pounds 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 RAM
memory. In 1972, a Honeywell 316 was displayed with a 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, but wanted to show that the company was cutting edge.
IV compiler was available, as well as an assembler, real time disk operating systems and system utilities and libraries.
The Honeywell Kitchen Computer or H316 pedestal model of 1969 was a short-lived product made by Honeywell
and offered by Neiman Marcus
as one of a continuing series of extravagant gift ideas. It sold for $10,000, weighed over 100 pounds, and was advertised as useful for storing recipes. Reading or entering these recipes would have been very difficult for the average cook, since the user interface
required the person to take a two-week course to learn 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:
"If she can only cook as well as Honeywell can compute."
"Her souffles are supreme, her meal planning a challenge? She's what the Honeywell people had in mind when they devised our Kitchen Computer. She'll learn to program it with a cross-reference to her favorite recipes by N-M's own Helen Corbitt
. Then by simply pushing a few buttons obtain a complete menu organized around the entree. And if she pales at reckoning her lunch tabs, she can program it to balance the family checkbook. 84A 10,600.00 complete with two week programming course. 84B Fed with Corbitt data: the original Helen Corbitt cookbook with over 1,000 recipes $100 (.75) 84C Her Potluck, 375 of our famed Zodiac restaurant's best kept secret recipes 3.95 (.75) Corbitt Epicure 84D Her Labaird Apron, one-size, ours alone by Clairdon House, multi-pastel provencial cotton 26.00 (.90) Trophy Room"
Although a fantasy gift, the Kitchen Computer represented the first time a computer was offered as a consumer product.
16-bit
-16-bit architecture:The HP BPC, introduced in 1975, was the world's first 16-bit microprocessor. Prominent 16-bit processors include the PDP-11, Intel 8086, Intel 80286 and the WDC 65C816. The Intel 8088 was program-compatible with the Intel 8086, and was 16-bit in that its registers were 16...
minicomputer
Minicomputer
A minicomputer is a class of multi-user computers that lies in the middle range of the computing spectrum, in between the largest multi-user systems and the smallest single-user systems...
built by Honeywell
Honeywell
Honeywell International, Inc. is a major conglomerate company that produces a variety of consumer products, engineering services, and aerospace systems for a wide variety of customers, from private consumers to major corporations and governments....
starting in 1969. It is part of the Series 16 which includes the Models 116, 316, 416, 516 and 716. They were commonly used for data acquisition and control, remote message concentration, clinical laboratory systems and time-sharing. The Series 16 computers are all based on the DDP-116 designed by Gardner Hendrie at Computer Control Company, Inc.
Computer Control Company, Inc.
Computer Control Company, Inc. , informally known as 3C, was a pioneering minicomputer company known for its DDP-series computers, notably the 1963 16-bit DDP-116 and the 24-bit DDP-24....
(3C) in 1964.
The H-316 was used by Charles H. Moore
Charles H. Moore
Charles H. Moore is the inventor of the Forth programming language.- Biography :In 1968, while employed at the United States National Radio Astronomy Observatory , Moore invented the initial version of the Forth language to help control radio telescopes...
to develop the first complete, stand-alone implementation of Forth at NRAO
National Radio Astronomy Observatory
The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a Federally Funded Research and Development Center of the United States National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc for the purpose of radio astronomy...
. They were used as ARPANET
ARPANET
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network , was the world's first operational packet switching network and the core network of a set that came to compose the global Internet...
Interface Message Processor
Interface Message Processor
The Interface Message Processor 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 ruggedized Honeywell DDP-516 minicomputer with...
s (IMP) but 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 computer
Prime Computer
Prime Computer, Inc. was a Natick, Massachusetts-based producer of minicomputers from 1972 until 1992. The alternative spellings "PR1ME" and "PR1ME Computer" were used as brand names or logos by the company.-Founders:...
s were designed to be compatible with the Series 16 minicomputers.
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 of small-scale integration DTLDiode-transistor logic
Diode–transistor logic is a class of digital circuits that is the direct ancestor of transistor–transistor logic. It is called so because the logic gating function is performed by a diode network and the amplifying function is performed by a transistor .- Implementations :The DTL circuit shown in...
monolithic integrated circuit
Integrated circuit
An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit is an electronic circuit manufactured by the patterned diffusion of trace elements into the surface of a thin substrate of semiconductor material...
s. Most parts of the system operated at 2.5 MHZ but some elements were clocked at 5 MHZ. The computer was a bitwise-parallel 2's complement
Two's complement
The two's complement of a binary number is defined as the value obtained by subtracting the number from a large power of two...
system with 16 bit word length. The instruction set
Instruction set
An instruction set, or instruction set architecture , is the part of the computer architecture related to programming, including the native data types, instructions, registers, addressing modes, memory architecture, interrupt and exception handling, and external I/O...
was a single-address type with an index register. Initially released with a capacity of 4096 through 16,385 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 extension was available to implement arithmetic on single- and double-precision floating point
Floating point
In computing, floating point describes a method of representing real numbers in a way that can support a wide range of values. Numbers are, in general, represented approximately to a fixed number of significant digits and scaled using an exponent. The base for the scaling is normally 2, 10 or 16...
values; the basic processor relied on software to carry out floating point calculations.
The programmer's 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 program counter was 16 bits long and contained the address of the next instruction.
- A carry flag indicated arithmetic overflow and was used for multiple-precision calculation.
- A 16-bit X index register was also provided for modification of the address of operands.
The instruction set
Instruction set
An instruction set, or instruction set architecture , is the part of the computer architecture related to programming, including the native data types, instructions, registers, addressing modes, memory architecture, interrupt and exception handling, and external I/O...
had 72 arithmetic, logic, I/O and program 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, but an option provided up to 48 interrupts.
In addition to a front panel
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 registers and memory. The front panel usually consisted of arrays of indicator lamps, toggle switches, and push buttons mounted on a sheet metal face plate...
display of lights and toggle switches, the system supported different types of input/output devices. One or more Teletype
Teletype Corporation
The Teletype Corporation, a part of American Telephone and Telegraph Company's Western Electric manufacturing arm since 1930, came into being in 1928 when the Morkrum-Kleinschmidt Company changed its name to the name of its trademark equipment...
Model 33 ASR teleprinters could be used as console I/O devices, and to load and store data to paper tape. Card readers and punches could also be included. The Honeywell family of peripherals included magnetic tape, fixed disk with a capacity of 3.6 million bytes, and the drum stored 196 thousand bytes.
A rack-mounted configuration weighed around 150 pounds 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 RAM
Ram
-Animals:*Ram, an uncastrated male sheep*Ram cichlid, a species of freshwater fish endemic to Colombia and Venezuela-Military:*Battering ram*Ramming, a military tactic in which one vehicle runs into another...
memory. In 1972, a Honeywell 316 was displayed with a 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, but wanted to show that the company was cutting edge.
System software
Honeywell provided up to 500 software packages that could run on the H/316 processor. A FORTRANFortran
Fortran is a general-purpose, procedural, imperative programming language that is especially suited to numeric computation and scientific computing...
IV compiler was available, as well as an assembler, real time disk operating systems and system utilities and libraries.
Kitchen Computer
Honeywell
Honeywell International, Inc. is a major conglomerate company that produces a variety of consumer products, engineering services, and aerospace systems for a wide variety of customers, from private consumers to major corporations and governments....
and offered by Neiman Marcus
Neiman Marcus
Neiman Marcus, formerly Neiman-Marcus, is a luxury specialty retail department store operated by the Neiman Marcus Group in the United States. The company is headquartered in the One Marcus Square building in Downtown Dallas, Texas, and competes with other department stores such as Saks Fifth...
as one of a continuing series of extravagant gift ideas. It sold for $10,000, weighed over 100 pounds, and was advertised as useful for storing recipes. Reading or entering these recipes would have been very difficult for the average cook, since the user interface
User interface
The user interface, in the industrial design field of human–machine interaction, is the space where interaction between humans and machines occurs. The goal of interaction between a human and a machine at the user interface is effective operation and control of the machine, and feedback from the...
required the person to take a two-week course to learn 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:
"If she can only cook as well as Honeywell can compute."
"Her souffles are supreme, her meal planning a challenge? She's what the Honeywell people had in mind when they devised our Kitchen Computer. She'll learn to program it with a cross-reference to her favorite recipes by N-M's own Helen Corbitt
Helen Corbitt
Helen Corbitt was an American chef and cookbook author. Corbitt was born in New York but spent nearly 40 years in Texas promoting gourmet cuisine with new and unusual flavor combinations and serving temperatures. She traveled widely searching for new culinary inspiration...
. Then by simply pushing a few buttons obtain a complete menu organized around the entree. And if she pales at reckoning her lunch tabs, she can program it to balance the family checkbook. 84A 10,600.00 complete with two week programming course. 84B Fed with Corbitt data: the original Helen Corbitt cookbook with over 1,000 recipes $100 (.75) 84C Her Potluck, 375 of our famed Zodiac restaurant's best kept secret recipes 3.95 (.75) Corbitt Epicure 84D Her Labaird Apron, one-size, ours alone by Clairdon House, multi-pastel provencial cotton 26.00 (.90) Trophy Room"
Although a fantasy gift, the Kitchen Computer represented the first time a computer was offered as a consumer product.