Errors due to internal malfunctions during a computation will be minimized by internal automatic monitors which aid in detecting such errors. When all the data, such as target location, powder temperature, gun location, and meteorological data, are entered, depression of a button initiates computation. Gun orders, comprising deflection, quadrant elevation, fuze time, and charge are displayed in decimal form. In the arithmetic unit the execution time for each instruction is 7.8 microseconds. Its arithmetic mode is parallel by function and serial by bit.
Timing is synchronous.
The storage consists of a main magnetic disc of 4,096 word capacity and a high-speed magnetic disc of 32 word capacity. There are 32 channels of 128 words each, of which 24 channels are designated as permanent storage and 8 channels as working storage. The extremely high-speed operation of this machine is made possible by a combination of new techniques incorporated in the logic design. Instruction search, instruction interpretation, number search, and number read are performed at the same time. This overlapping feature, together with minimum access coding, rapid access loops, and multiplication using two bits at a time, results in a machine capable of performing 12,800 additions or subtractions per second, approximately 750 multiplications per second, and 375 divisions per second, including access time for both instructions and numbers.