NORDIC

NORDIC (the Nord Integrated Computer System) was a multi-computer installation at the Norwegian Meteorological Institute in Oslo, Norway. Development of the system started in 1971, and was completed in February 1972. The complete system consisted of three NORD-1 machines, connected to a NORD-5 compute module.

Hardware

Telecommunications processor

One of the NORD-1 machines works as a telecommunications processor. It has 16K 16-bit core memory, a 256K drum as storage, and is connected to the national teleprinter net and international lines (via modems).

Job processors

The two other NORD-1 machines are the job processors. They share a common 64K memory pool (core memory), and have common peripheral equipment that can be connected by a multi-selector switch to any of the two NORD-1 machines.

Peripherals consists of

• two NCR Dual Disc units with capacity of 8 million 16 bit word, average access time 45 ms
• one Vermont drum, capacity 256K 16 bit words, access time 10 ms average
• three Magtape units, 9 track IBM compatible
• Card reader, 300 cards per minute
• Line printer, 1500 lines per minute
• Paper tape reader 333 characters per second
• Paper tape reader 2000 characters per second
• Paper tape punch 60 characters per second
• One Matrix plotter

The multi-selector switch can be operated manually, or program controlled.

System software

The operating system for the NORDIC consists of the real-time operating system SINTRAN II and a file oriented batch operating system NORD-OPS.

References

• NDWiki: NORDIC