3 ms·
The CDC 6600 could run multiple functional units (adder, multiplier, logic, etc.) at the same time, and the CDC 7600 added pipelining to the mix. These machine
by mschaef 3y ago
The CDC 6600 could run multiple functional units (adder, multiplier, logic, etc.) at the same time, and the CDC 7600 added pipelining to the mix.
These machines were organized in such a way that the main CPU did not run (most of) the OS and was not responsible for I/O. Those operations were all handled by an array of secondary processors optimized for the purpose. A PPU (Peripheral Processing Unit) would interact with an I/O device, load data into main memory, and then notify the main CPU.
Vector came later, with the Cray 1 (and the CDC Star, less effectively).