A small source language editing and operating system in a military training establishment
K L Hunt, A J Sammes · ITNOW · 1969
The main tasks of the DADPTC, fall into the following groups: At any one time the centre may have 20 students on the group a) course, the same number on the b) course and 10 on the advanced course outlined under c) above. In addition a team of four programmers and six lecturers are concerned to a greater or lesser extent with the activities d) and e) above. The operating staff consists of one officer and three NCOs. In December 1967 an ICL 1903S processor with 32K word core capacity, a line printer, paper tape input and output, and two 100-track exchangeable disc handlers was installed, and later two visual display units were added. As is well known this processor has a dual programming capability with one-way store protection. The ‘lower’ 16K is protected but contains Executive, leaving 10K words available for user programs. Fortunately the developed operational programs which have to be run on this system can be accommodated in this 10K protected area of the store. They draw their data from disc and store results on disc. These results are output via the line printer in batches at intervals of one week or so. This latter process uses the whole 32K of store and is carried out in ‘out-of-shifV hours, an arrangement necessary for security reasons. The ‘upper’ 16K of the core store is used almost exclusively for the development of student and staff programs varying from the trivial to the complex and using any of the compilers or an Elliott 920 simulator written by the staff.