UNIVAC 1103 - Technical Details

Technical Details

The system used electrostatic storage, consisting of 36 Williams tubes with a capacity of 1024 bits each, giving a total random access memory of 1024 words of 36 bits each. Each of the 36 Williams tubes was five inches in diameter. A magnetic drum memory provided 16,384 words. Both the electrostatic and drum memories were directly addressable: addresses 0 through 01777 (Octal) were in electrostatic memory and 040000 through 077777 (Octal) were on the drum.

Fixed-point numbers had a 1-bit sign and a 35-bit value, with negative values represented in ones' complement format.

Instructions had a 6-bit operation code and two 15-bit operand addresses.

Programming systems for the machine included the RECO regional coding assembler by Remington-Rand, the RAWOOP one-pass assembler and SNAP floating point interpretive system authored by the Ramo-Wooldridge Corporation of Los Angeles, the FLIP floating point interpretive system by Consolidated Vultee Aircraft of San Diego, and the CHIP floating point interpretive system by Wright Field in Ohio.

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