Nord-5

Nord-5 was Norsk Data's first 32-bit machine and was claimed to be the first 32-bit minicomputer,[1] subject to various qualifications. It was described in company literature as an "auxiliary computer... monitored by two or more NORD-1 computers", this arrangement comprising the "NORD Integrated Computer System" or NORDIC system. It was arguably this more comprehensive configuration that supported such claims of achieving an industry first with the machine.[2]: iii  Its successor, the Nord-50, was itself described as a "special purpose computer" and had a similar reliance on a Nord-10 host computer.[3]: I-I-I 

Introduced in 1972, the Nord-5 was categorised in reporting as a "superminicomputer", described retrospectively as a "technological success but a commercial disaster",[4] eventually being superseded by the ND-500 family, announced in 1981.[5] Initially described as a larger version of the Nord-1 to compete with the UNIVAC 1106 and the IBM System/360 Model 44,[6] the machine used a Nord-1 as its front-end console processor, which ran the majority of the operating system.[7] Being designed for "high performance on number crunching", the machine could perform floating-point multiplication in around 1μs and division in around 8μs.[2]: iii  The Nord-50 achieved a reported 0.5 million Whetstone instructions per second in benchmarking.[8]

  1. ^ Holt, Knut (1988). Product innovation management. Butterworth & Co. (Publishers) Ltd. p. 318. Retrieved 7 July 2023.
  2. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference nord5_instruction_set was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ NORD 50 Functional Description (PDF). Norsk Data AS. November 1977. Retrieved 24 August 2024.
  4. ^ Smith, Kevin (16 December 1985). "Norsk Data Grows Fast by Going Pan-European". Electronics. pp. 62–63. Retrieved 7 July 2023.
  5. ^ Cahill, Kevin (9 April 1981). "Norsk launches first European 32-bit mini". Computer Weekly. p. 3. Retrieved 24 June 2024.
  6. ^ "Ships welcome Norway's computers aboard". Electronics. 21 December 1970. p. 76. Retrieved 7 July 2023.
  7. ^ NORD-10 Design Goals (PDF). Norsk Data AS. p. 3. Retrieved 26 August 2024.
  8. ^ "Whetstone Benchmark History and Results". Roy Longbottom's PC Benchmark Collection. October 2014. Retrieved 31 August 2024.