UNIVAC Series 70
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70C-877-21. Computers UNIVAC Series 70 MANAGEMENT SUMMARY The Series 70 product line, which UNIVAC With the formal takeover of RCA's American, Canadian, acquired from RCA in January 1972, consists and Mexican computer customer base on January 1, 1972, of 18 processor models spanning two genera for $70 million plus ongoing royalties, UNIVAC cul tions. It includes both general-purpose and minated more than three months of intricate negotiations special-purpose computers, as well as some that followed RCA's announcement to withdraw from the general-purpose computer business. At the time of the well-proven virtual memory systems. Though takeover, the installed Series 70 base consisted of some the Series 70 equipment is no longer in 520 accounts with more than 900 computer systems. production, UNIVAC has been outstandingly About 26Q of these accounts had second-generation (RCA successful in preserving the former RCA cus 301, ·5Ql, 601, and 3301) equipment; about 15 had tomer base. out-of-production small-scale systems (70/15 and 70/25); and about 40 others had the special-purpose 1600. Of the remaining 575-plus Series 70 computers, the overwhelm CHARACTERISTICS ing majority were Spectra systems, while just about 10 MANUFACTURER: Sperry Univac Division, Sperry Rand percent were RCA's "new" Series 70/2, 3, 6, or 7 Corporation, P.O. Box 500, Blue BeD, Pennsylvania 19422. computers. Telephone (215) 542-4011. UNNAC's basic marketing strategy for the Series 70 was MODELS: UNIVAC Series 70/2, 70/3, 70/6, 70/7, 70/35, formulated prior to the effective takeover and hasn't 70/45, 70/46, 70/55, 70/60, and 70/61. (Note that the 70/15, 70/25, 1600, and older RCA 301, 501, 601, and required much modification during the intervening years: 3301 computers are also part of the Series 70 customer 1) keep the Series 70 customers happy and keep them on base and are described briefty in the Management Summary Series 70 equipment as long as they remain satisfied; and of tJUs report.) 2) when they outgrow the Series 70 systems, provide "bridge" products and other conversion aids to move DATA FORMATS them to existing UNIVAC Series 90 or 1100-type systems BASIC UNIT: 8-bit byte. Each byte can represent 1 or to other yet-to-be-announced UNIVAC products. A alphanumeric character, 2 BCD digits, or 8 binary bits. Two major feature of the strategy has included the upgrading consecutive bytes form a "halfword" of 16 bits, while (our of installed systems with additional higher-performance I> consecutive bytes form a 32-bit ''word.'' ~ At the top of the Series 70 line .is the 7017, a virtual memory system that can be equipped with up to 2 mll1ion bytes of core storage with a cycle time of 765 .nanoseconds per 4-byte access. VMOS, the operating system developed for the Series 70 virtual memory computers, has been adopted (under the name VSI9) as the principal operating system for. the UNIVAC 90/60 and 90170 com puters. REFERENCE EDITION. This is a mature product line, and no significant further developments are anticipated. Because of its importance, coverage is being continued, but no future update is planned. JUNE 1975 ©1975 DATAPRO RESEARCH CORPORATION, DELRAN, N.J. 08075 REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 70C-877-21b Computers UN IVAC Series 70 Series 70 products during the life of the Series 70 ~ FIXED-POINT OPERANDS: Can range from 1 to 16 bytes installations. Under the initial agreement reached between (1 to 31 digits plus sign) in decimal mode; 1 halfword (16 RCA and UNIV AC, RCA agreed to continue manufactur bits) or 1 word (32 bits) in binary mode. ing Series 70 hardware for several years under a compli FLOATING-POINT OPERANDS: 1 word, consisting of cated structure of royalty payments, OEM relationships, 24-bit fraction and 7-bit hexadecimal exponent, in "short" and service agreements. format; or 2 words, consisting of 56-bit fraction and 7-bit hexadecimal exponent, in "long" format. Immediately upon concluding the takeover agreement with RCA, UNNAC purposefully set about earning the INSTRUCfIONS: 2,4, or 6 bytes in length, specifying 0,1, or 2 memory addresses, respectively. confidence of its newly acquired customers by displaying a firm-commitment to the continued support and en INTERNAL CODE: EBCDIC (Extended Binary-coded hancement of the major systems in the RCA product line. Decimal Interchange Code). The Series 70 processors can During the first nine months of 1972, UNNAC issued alternatively use 8-bit ASCII, but little software support is new releases of each of the three main Series 70 operating provided for this code. systems, added several software applicatioris packages, MAIN STORAGE substituted high-performance UNIVAC tape and disc drives for several undelivered RCA peripherals, staffed up STORAGE TYPE: Magnetic core. with about 2500 former RCA employees (experiencing CAPACITY: See table. On the newer processors (70/2,3,6, better than a 90 percent acceptance rate on job offers to 7, 60, and 61), the basic unit of standardized main memory key personnel),and announced its intention to develop a is a free-standing, independently testable b~k of 262,144 series of conversion aids from Series 70 systems to other bytes. Each of these banks consists of two 131,072-byte UNNAC computers. Each of these moves had some effect modules. (1he 65KB 70/2 memory consists of one effective in the retention of more than 90 percent of the customer half of one 131KB module.) In a multiple-processor instal lation, each 262KB bank can be manually switched from base during the initial period. In fact, nearly 70 RCA-built one processor to another processor of the same or a computers worth over $90 million were shipped during different model. the fust 9 months of UNNAC's Series 70 operations; - about half of these replaced previously installed equip CYCLE TIME: See table. ment, while the rest were additions to existing installa OIECKING: Puity bit with each byte is generated during tions. writing and checked during reading. As of June 1973, RCA ceased manufacturing new Series STORAGE PROTECI10N: Protection against both un 70 components. Then, in August 1973, RCA removed authorized reading and writing, in 2048-byte blocks, is standard in the 70/2, 3, 6 and 7. The optional Memory itself completely from Series 70 activities by concluding Protect feature for the 70/35 or larger processors guards an amended agreement with UNNAC for the remaining against inadvertent overwriting of data in specified payment for its former computer business. All former 2048-byte blocks of storage. Store and Fetch Protection, provisions for revenue sharing were abandoned in the fmal which protects against unauthorized reading as well as contract in favor of the payment to RCA of a lump sum writing, is available for the 70/45 Type II Processor. of $36.7 million in three final cash installments. All CENTRAL PROCESSORS remaining revenues from the Series 70 systems accrue solely to UNNAC. INDEX REGISTERS: The programmer has access to six teen 32-bit general registers, used for indexing, base addres Although the Series 70 is no longer being actively sing, and as accumulators, plus four 64-bit floating-point registers. (There are four sets of registers in all-one for marketed, and system components are supplied only on each processor state-but only one set is normally accessible an as-available basis, UNIVAC appears to have experi to the programmer.) enced little difficulty in placing the relatively small number of Series 70 computer systems that have been re INDIRECf ADDRESSING: Up to three levels for the "real" memory systems, with a fourth level provided for placed by other UNIVAC or competitive computer sys virtual systems to address into the '"backing store." tems, primarily as upgrades or additions to current Series 70 installations. As a result, at this writing, UNIVAC esti INSTRUcrION REPERTOIRE: Each Series 70 system has mates that over 76 percent of the systems originally ac from 140 to 154 standard instructions (see table), including add, subtract, multiply, and divide in four diff~rent modes: quired in the January 1972 negotiations are still installed, fixed-point binary, variable-length decimal, and "short" and representing a retention rate that exceeds even UNIVAC's "long" floating-point. Other instructions handle loading, most optimistic expectations. storing, comparing, shifting, branching, radix conversion, code translation, editing, packing, unpacking, logical opera tions, etc. In addition, the time-sharing or virtual storage No doubt UNNAC's continued attention to the Series 70 70/3, 70/46, 70/7 and 70/61 Processors can include up to operating systems has played an important role in keeping 128 microprogrammed special functions. the customers satisfied. Since 1972, UNIVAC has issued three new releases of DOS, two new releases of TDOS, INSTRUCI10N TIMES: See table. Note that the instruc tion execution timings can be improved through changes in and four new releases of the Virtual Memory Operating 1he microprograms for the 70/3, 70/46, 70/7, or 70/61. System (VMOS). Furthermore, UNNAC states that it will continue to support the Series 70 software as long as OPTIONAL FEATURES: The following features are avail- Series 70 customers continue to use it. 1:> able: • ©1975 DATAPRO RESEARCH CORPORATION, DELRAN, N.J. 08075 JUNE 1975 REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 70C-877-21c Computers UNIVAC Series 70 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CURRENT UNIVAC SERIES 70 SYSTEMS 70/45 70/45 70/3 70/46 70/61 70/2 70/6 70/7 70/35 Type I Type II 70/55 70/60 SYSTEM CHARACTERISTICS Maximum no. of central processors supported by standard software 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Principal operating systems DOS.