Punches software programs

University of Michigan s Executive System was obtained. On this base, OOPS, an acronym for Our OPerating System, was prepared with the constraint that it have minimal impact on the existing user-program environment 101). The core-resident portion of the system was designed so that it could be flushed for a full-core user-application and reloaded automatically upon job completion from the system resident device, the 704 s 8K-word drum. Operator intervention was necessary to restore the system in the event such full-core jobs aborted. Auxiliary software was written for the IBM 1401 s role as support processor in which the machine prepared the system input tapes and printed and punched OOPS output. This tape-oriented system helped relieve the overloading of the 704 from 1962 through the installation of the next system, the CDC 3600, in late 1963, and was still in use in mid-1966 when the 704 was retired. 

Table 6.3 summarizes the evolution of the computer hardware typically employed in automated x-ray spectrometers. The movement proceeded from punch cards to paper tape (1968), then to tape cassette (1970), to floppy disk (1972), to Phoenix hard drive (1974), to Winchester disk technology (1975), to the personal computer (1980), and finally arrived at the implementation of the CD-ROM (1987). Not insignificant in this development cycle is the impact on the software. In the days of 4K minicomputers supported by paper tape all programs were written in assembler language. With the industry rate of one instruction per hour for a good programmer, a 4K program took the best part of two years to write. Needless to... 

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