Designer General Electric Introduced 1964 Encoding Fixed | Bits 24-bit Design CISC | |
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Type Register-Memory
Memory-Memory | ||
The GE-400 series were Time-sharing Information Systems computers by General Electric introduced in 1964 and shipped until 1968.
Contents
System description
The GE-400 series came in three models: 415, 425, and 435. GE-400 systems had a word length of 24 bits which could contain binary data, 4 6-bit BCD characters, or 4 signed decimal digits. GE-400 systems could have up to 32768 words (132K characters) of magnetic-core memory with a cycle time of 2.7 microseconds (435) or 5.1 microseconds (425). The systems supported up to eight channels for input/output.
The GE 412 was an incompatible computer system with a 20-bit word length intended for process control applications.
Unique features
GE-400 systems featured a "variable length, relocatable accumulator" which could be set programmatically to a length of one to four words and relocated to overlay any four adjacent locations in memory (modulo four). "The accumulator can be moved to the data to be processed, rather than moving the data."
Successor systems
The 400 series was succeeded by the incompatible 36-bit GE-600 series.