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Card equipment: Reading speeds of up to 1500 cards
per minute; punching speeds of up to 300 cards per
minute; intermixed binary and EBCDIC card codes.
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Line printers: Fully buffered, with speeds of up
to 1500 lines per minute; 132 print positions with
64 characters.
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Keyboard/printers: Ten characters per second;
also available with integral paper tape reader
(20 characters per second) and punch (10 charac-
ters per second).
•
Paper tape equipment: Readers with speeds of up
to 300 characters per second; punches with speeds
of up to 120 characters per second.
•
Graph plotters: Digital incremental, providing
drift-free plotting in two axes in up to 300 steps
per second at speeds from 30 mm to 3 inches per
second.
•
Data communications equipment: A complete line
of character- and message-oriented equipment to
connect remote user terminals to the computer sys-
tem via common carrier lines and local terminals
directly.
STANDARD AND OPTIONAL FEATURES
A basic SIGMA 6 system has the following standard
features:
•
A CPU that includes:
•
Decimal arithmetic unit
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Memory map with access protection
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Memory write protection
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Watchdog timer
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Two register blocks
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Two real-time clocks
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P ower fa ii-safe
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Memory parity interrupt
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Input/output interrupt
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Control pane
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interrupt
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External interface (Direct I/O)
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32,768 words of main memory with two ports
•
Multiplexor Input/Output Processor with eight sub-
channels and 4-byte interface feature.
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Standard and Opti ona I/Rea
1-
Ti me Features
A SIGMA 6 system may have the following optional features:
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Two additional real-time clocks
•
Up to 30 additional register blocks
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Floating-point arithmetic unit
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Up to 224 external priority interrupts
•
Up to four additional memory ports
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Up to three additional Multiplexor I/O Processors
(MIOPs)
•
Up to two additional groups of eight multiplexor sub-
channels with each MIOP
•
MIOP expansion option for each MIOP with 4-byte
interface and one group of eight subchannels
•
Selector Input/Output Processor (SlOP) with 4-byte
interface
REAL-TIME FEATURES
Real-time appl ications are characterized by a need for hard-
ware that provides quick response to an external environment,
enough speed to keep up with the real-time process and suf-
ficient input/output flexibility to handle a variety of data
types at varying speeds. The SIGMA 6 system includes pro-
visions for the following real-time computing features.
Multi level, True Priority Interrupt System. The real-time
oriented SIGMA 6 system provides for quick response to in-
terrupts bymeans of up to 224 external interrupt levels. The
source of each interrupt is automatically identified and re-
sponded to according to its priority. For further flexibility
each level can be individually disarmed (to discontinue ac-
cepting inputs to it) and disabled (to defer responding to it).
Use of the disarm/disable feature makes programmed dynam;c
reassignment of priorities quick and easy, even while a real-
time process is in progress. In establishing a configuration for
the system, each group of 16 interrupt levels can have its
priority assigned in different ways in order to meet the spe-
cific needs of the problem; the way in which interrupt levels
are programmed is not affected by the pri ority assignment.
Programs that deal with interrupts from specially designed
equipment sometimes must be checked out before that
equipment is actually available. To permit simulating this
special equipment, any SIGMA 6 interrupt level can be
triggered by the CPU itself through exec uti on of a si ngle
instruction. This capability is also useful in establishing a
hierarchy of responses. For example, in responding to a
high-priority interrupt, after the urgent processing is com-
pleted, it may be desirable to assign a lower priority to the
rema i n i ng porti on in order to respond to other cri ti ca I i nter-
rupt levels. The interrupt routine can accomplish this by
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triggering a lower-priority level, which processes the re-
maining data only after other interrupts have been handled.
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