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Scientific Data Systems
Scientific Data Systems (SDS), was an American computer company founded in September 1961 by Max Palevsky, Arthur Rock and Robert Beck, veterans of Packard Bell Corporation and Bendix, along with eleven other computer scientists. SDS was the first to employ silicon transistors, and was an early adopter of integrated circuits in computer design. The company concentrated on machines that focused on larger scientific workloads and sold many machines to NASA during the Space Race. Most machines were both fast and relatively low-priced. The company was sold to Xerox in 1969, but dwindling sales due to the oil crisis of 1973–74 caused Xerox to close the division in 1975 at a loss of hundreds of millions of dollars. During the Xerox years the company was officially Xerox Data Systems (XDS), whose machines were the Xerox 500 series.
Throughout the majority of the 1960s the US computer market was dominated by "Snow White" (IBM), and the "Seven Dwarfs", Burroughs, UNIVAC, NCR, Control Data Corporation, Honeywell, General Electric, and RCA. SDS entered this well-developed market and was able to introduce a time-sharing computer at just the right time. Much of their success was due to the use of silicon-based transistors in their earliest designs, the 24-bit SDS 910 and SDS 920 which included a hardware (integer) multiplier. These are arguably the first commercial systems based on silicon, rather than germanium, which offered much better reliability for no real additional cost.
Additionally, the SDS machines shipped with a selection of software, notably a FORTRAN compiler, developed by Digitek, that made use of the systems' Programmed OPeratorS (POPS), and could compile, in 4K 24-bit words, programs in a single pass without the need for magnetic tape secondary storage. For scientific users writing small programs, this was a real boon and dramatically improved development turnaround time.
The 910 and 920 were joined by the SDS 9300, announced in June 1963. Among other changes, the 9300 included a floating-point processor for higher performance. The performance increase was dramatic; the 910/920 needed 16 microseconds to add two 24-bit integers, the 9300 only 1.75, almost 10 times as fast. The 9300 also increased maximum memory from 16 kWords to 32 kWords. Although its instruction format resembled that of the earlier machines, it was not compatible with them.
In December 1963 SDS announced the SDS 930, a major re-build of the 9xx line using integrated circuits (ICs) in the central processor. It was comparable to the 9300 in basic operations, but was generally slower overall due to the lack of the 9300's memory interlace capability and hardware floating-point unit (although a hardware floating-point "correlation and filtering unit" was available as an expensive option). The 930 cost less than half that of the original 9300, at about $105,000 (equivalent to $1,078,000 in 2024). Cut-down versions of the 920 also followed, including the 12-bit SDS 92, and the IC-based 925.
Project Genie developed a segmentation and relocation system for time-sharing use on the 930 at the University of California, Berkeley, which was commercialized in the SDS 940. It had additional hardware for relocation and swapping of memory sections, and interruptible instructions. The 940 would go on to be a major part of Tymshare's circuit-switched network system growth in the 1960s (pre-ARPAnet and before packet-switching). A 945 was announced in July 1968 as a modified 940 with less I/O and the same computation power, but it is unclear whether this shipped.
The SDS 92 is generally accepted as the first commercial computer using monolithic integrated circuits. ICs were used on about 50 circuit cards.
The SDS 92 is a small, high-speed, very low-cost, general-purpose computer 12-bit system introduced in 1965. it was not compatible with other SDS lines such as the 900 series or the Sigma series. Features included:
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Scientific Data Systems
Scientific Data Systems (SDS), was an American computer company founded in September 1961 by Max Palevsky, Arthur Rock and Robert Beck, veterans of Packard Bell Corporation and Bendix, along with eleven other computer scientists. SDS was the first to employ silicon transistors, and was an early adopter of integrated circuits in computer design. The company concentrated on machines that focused on larger scientific workloads and sold many machines to NASA during the Space Race. Most machines were both fast and relatively low-priced. The company was sold to Xerox in 1969, but dwindling sales due to the oil crisis of 1973–74 caused Xerox to close the division in 1975 at a loss of hundreds of millions of dollars. During the Xerox years the company was officially Xerox Data Systems (XDS), whose machines were the Xerox 500 series.
Throughout the majority of the 1960s the US computer market was dominated by "Snow White" (IBM), and the "Seven Dwarfs", Burroughs, UNIVAC, NCR, Control Data Corporation, Honeywell, General Electric, and RCA. SDS entered this well-developed market and was able to introduce a time-sharing computer at just the right time. Much of their success was due to the use of silicon-based transistors in their earliest designs, the 24-bit SDS 910 and SDS 920 which included a hardware (integer) multiplier. These are arguably the first commercial systems based on silicon, rather than germanium, which offered much better reliability for no real additional cost.
Additionally, the SDS machines shipped with a selection of software, notably a FORTRAN compiler, developed by Digitek, that made use of the systems' Programmed OPeratorS (POPS), and could compile, in 4K 24-bit words, programs in a single pass without the need for magnetic tape secondary storage. For scientific users writing small programs, this was a real boon and dramatically improved development turnaround time.
The 910 and 920 were joined by the SDS 9300, announced in June 1963. Among other changes, the 9300 included a floating-point processor for higher performance. The performance increase was dramatic; the 910/920 needed 16 microseconds to add two 24-bit integers, the 9300 only 1.75, almost 10 times as fast. The 9300 also increased maximum memory from 16 kWords to 32 kWords. Although its instruction format resembled that of the earlier machines, it was not compatible with them.
In December 1963 SDS announced the SDS 930, a major re-build of the 9xx line using integrated circuits (ICs) in the central processor. It was comparable to the 9300 in basic operations, but was generally slower overall due to the lack of the 9300's memory interlace capability and hardware floating-point unit (although a hardware floating-point "correlation and filtering unit" was available as an expensive option). The 930 cost less than half that of the original 9300, at about $105,000 (equivalent to $1,078,000 in 2024). Cut-down versions of the 920 also followed, including the 12-bit SDS 92, and the IC-based 925.
Project Genie developed a segmentation and relocation system for time-sharing use on the 930 at the University of California, Berkeley, which was commercialized in the SDS 940. It had additional hardware for relocation and swapping of memory sections, and interruptible instructions. The 940 would go on to be a major part of Tymshare's circuit-switched network system growth in the 1960s (pre-ARPAnet and before packet-switching). A 945 was announced in July 1968 as a modified 940 with less I/O and the same computation power, but it is unclear whether this shipped.
The SDS 92 is generally accepted as the first commercial computer using monolithic integrated circuits. ICs were used on about 50 circuit cards.
The SDS 92 is a small, high-speed, very low-cost, general-purpose computer 12-bit system introduced in 1965. it was not compatible with other SDS lines such as the 900 series or the Sigma series. Features included: