Indexing and Control-Word Techniques

In large-scale computers the details of data handling, such as indexing, transmission and ordering, may be performed either by programming or by built-in machine operations. An analysis of the most frequently performed functions justifies the expansion of single-valued index quantities to three-valued control words and the specification of built-in increment, count and refill operations to be used with these control words. STRETCH, the large-scale computer which is being developed by IBM for the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, provides these control-word functions for data-handling operations.