GB887162A - Improvements relating to digital computers - Google Patents

Abstract

887,162. Digital electric calculating-apparatus. ASSOCIATED ELECTRICAL INDUSTRIES Ltd. May 1, 1958 [May 7, 1957], No. 14511/57. Class 106 (1). An electrical digital computer has an arithmetic circuit, a store, access to which is determined by a control circuit and means whereby information fed to the input is passed directly to the control circuit so as to cause the transfer from the store to the arithmetical circuit of the original information converted to the form required in the computer. As described, input data in binary-coded decimal form is applied to a control circuit which causes transfer from the store of a machine to the arithmetic unit of a binary representation of the input data. Characters in binary-coded decimal form on a 5-hole punched tape are read by a reader R, the binary signals produced being converted to serial form on a line X. The contents of the control register C normally increase by one as each instruction is obeyed, pulses for this purpose being applied at Y, but when an instruction calling for the transfer of an input tape character to the control register occurs, a signal is applied to a line Z to open a gate G7 and close a gate G8, so that the required transfer is effected, the computer taking its next instruction from the new address now stored in the control register C. A modification is described (Fig. 3, not shown), for a machine in which each instruction contains the address of the next instruction. Specification 851,418 is referred to.