ICL 4-70

Home * Hardware * ICL 4-70



ICL System 4-70, (ICL 4-70) a 32-bit mainframe computer, member of the English Electric System 4 and since 1968 ICL 4 series, derived from the RCA Spectra 70, an IBM 360 clone. The IBM 360 compatibility made it particularly attractive to customers in the Soviet Union, as the sale of IBM computers was politically sensitive and commercially restricted during the Cold War. Computer speed was 0.280 MWIPS on Whetstone benchmark and 368 KIPS on Gibson Mix benchmark. The cost of the computer in 1968 was 600 thousand pounds.

=Photos= Kaissa on ICL 4-70 operated by Vladimir Arlazarov during the WCCC 1974

=Quotes= Quote by Aaron L. Futer about the ICL 4-70 computer at the Institute of Control Sciences:

The algorithm is implemented on a computer with the IBM-360 command system. The unit of information of this computer is a byte — 8 binary digits (bits). The command system provides for work with the following values: byte, halfword (2 bytes), word (4 bytes), double word (8 bytes), variable length field (up to 256 bytes). Performance depends on the command format, but on average it is 300 thousand operations per second. The machine's main memory, available to the programmer, is 330 thousand bytes. Capacity of external devices: magnetic tape — 20×106 bytes, disk — 7.2×106 bytes. The operating system allows several programs to run in parallel.

To encode the chessboard, we use 64 bits — a double word. Bits are numbered from 0 to 63.

=Chess Programs=
 * Kaissa
 * Pioneer

=See also=
 * Amdahl 470
 * IBM 360
 * IBM 370

=External Links=
 * English Electric System 4
 * RCA Spectra 70
 * ICL 4-70, instalacja w Oliwie, zespół ETO (I197705).jpg - Wikimedia Commons
 * 80 years of the ICS RAS.pdf, p.307. See also 75 years of the ICS RAS.pdf, pp.100, 108, 471, 613
 * Yuri Averbakh on the victory of Kaissa in 1974. Video
 * ICL 4-70 in the ICS RAS computer room

=References= Up one Level