Honeywell Series 400/800

Honeywell entered the computer field by taking minority interests (40%) in Datamatic co-founded with Raytheon in Newton and Waltham, MA with Walter Finke (Honeywell) as CEO. In 1957 Honeywell acquired the part of Raytheon in Datamatic and developed in the 1950s and the early 1960s. Until 1960s, the producer of the series 400 and 800 was named The Datamatic Division of Honeywell (Minneapolis).

Datamatic D 1000

Datamatic 1000 was a vacuum tubes computers developed in 1956. It originated the 48-bits architecture used on Honeywell Series 400 and 800. Seven systems had been delivered in 1957 prior tha Honeywell acquisition, the first customer being Blue Cross/Blue Field of Michigan.

Honeywell 400

general purpose computer delivered in 1960

48-bits (+2) words, that may contain 4 decimal digits signed or unsigned or 8 alphanumeric characters
Instruction word of 48 bits: 6-bits Op code, 6-bits index, 13-bits A and B addresses, 10-bits C-address.

Software incliuded:
EASY Assembler
COBOL compiler
AUTOMATH scientific language compiler
Run Monitor

Performances add 111 µs, multiply 1591 µs, divide 5574 µs [performance evaluated to 6 KOps]

Technology

main memory 1 to 4 Kwords of magnetic tore access time 9.25 µs

Peripherals

Honeywell 1400

evolution of H-400 introduced in 1963

main memory extended to 32K words.

Honeywell 800

H-800 was a transistors technology system, announced in 1958, delivered in December 1960. A total of 89 systems were delivered. Its main characteristics was to time-share the processor between up to 8 (H-400 compatible) programs under hardware control allocating successive cycles to different programs. [the hardware multiplexing used in H-800 was similar to that delivered later on CDC6600]

48-bits (+2) words, that may contain 4 decimal digits signed or unsigned or 8 alphanumeric characters
Instruction word of 48 bits: 6-bits Op code, 6-bits index, 13-bits A and B addresses, 10-bits C-address.
Co-routines handling was implemented by using two instruction counters and return address registers. each program had a total of 32 registers (among which 2 program counters, 2 return address history registers, 8 indexes, 1 base address, 1 mask index, 12 general purpose registers)

I/O were handled under control of  up to 16 controllers using a data chaining feature (scatter-gather). 

This machine implements eight virtual processors, each having 2 program counters and an individual interrupt vector base register. On each memory cycle the hardware scans on a priority basis for activity on eight input controllers, then eight output controllers, and then the CPU. Within the CPU the hardware scans the virtual processors in a cyclic manner (with various exceptions for multiple memory cycle operations).

Honeywell 1800

announced in 1962, delivered in 1964

48-bits (+2) words, that may contain 4 decimal digits signed or unsigned or 8 alphanumeric characters
Instruction word of 48 bits: 6-bits Op code, 6-bits index control, 13-bits A and B addresses, 10-bits C-address.

Honeywell 1800-II

The H-1800 and H-1800-II, are identical except that the H-1800-II includes an Input/Output Control Center. This IOCC is capable of controlling one card reader, one card punch, one high-speed printer and four magnetic tape units. All of these peripheral units may be operated simultaneously, either on-line with the central processor or off-line, in any combination of operations. Complete buffering allows Read/Write/Compute overlap.

Honeywell 8200

Announced in 1965, H-8200 was the last model of the H6800 line. It added a 9th virtual processor to run the operating system to control both H-4200 and H-800 programs. Its character oriented H-200 tightly coupled processor was used for data spooling and for data communications