The logical design of a serial general purpose digital computer with micro-program capabilities

Abstract

This thesis presents the detailed logical design of a serial, general-purpose digital computer with micro-program capabilities. The machine is a medium-speed computer with a magnetic drum memory, and includes a modest magnetic core memory for storing micro-orders. The micro-program feature relates to the command structure of the machine. Micro-orders enable the programmer to specify many of the elementary internal operations; these micro-orders are arranged into micro-routines which synthesize computation sequences equivalent to commands in more conventional computers. Therefore, effectively, the machine has an extremely long command list. Included are descriptions of the internal organization of the machine, and the detailed logical equations which are directly applicable to the construction of the computer. A few micro-routines, for both usual and uncommon commands, are also shown, to illustrate possible applications of the machine.