The Rice Computer Project took place at Rice University starting in the late 1950s. The R1 computer was designed and built from scratch, and entered general service in 1961. The computer used vacuum tube logic, and proved to be an excellent test bed for hardware experimentation. It was still in use in 1967, when [Bratton and Orvedahl 1967] was written. Edward Feustel, then an Associate Professor at Rice, was involved with the R2 project and collected a number of documents, photographs, and artifacts from the R1 project, which he donated to the Computer History Museum in 2008. In 2015, Paul McJones cataloged and scanned these items for CHM and created an earlier version of this web site.
Note: The catalog numbers in the entries below link to the corresponding record in the Computer History Museum online catalog; many catalog entries include a PDF. See also the finding aid for the collection.Abstract: This note describes the essential features of a Basic Machine, and indicates the main choices which remain to be made in designing a practical system.
Abstract: Methods of store management appropriate to machines with tagged addresses are described. It is shown how the information implicit in addresses can be used both by microprogram and system routines to achieve efficient use of register and primary storage.
Includes R1 hardware test program descriptions and source code by Joel Cyprus, Jane [Jodeit?], Mary Shaw, and Forest Baskett (but most are unsigned).
Author not specified, but probably Martin H. Graham and Zevi W. Salsburg according to John K. Iliffe. Copy belonging to Dwayne A. Chesnut; extensive updates in pencil, ink, and inserted pages.
Author not specified, but predominately Jane G. Jodeit according to John K. Iliffe.
Two copies. The one with "Rosenberg" on the cover (not scanned) has penciled corrections on several pages.
Originally in 3-ring binder labeled "PROGRAMMING STAFF COPY". With penciled corrections on some pages.
Program listings, and typed and handwritten design notes, flowcharts, etc.
Program listings, and typed and handwritten design notes, flowcharts, etc.
Program listings, and typed and handwritten design notes, flowcharts, etc.
Program listings, and typed and handwritten design notes, flowcharts, etc.
Program listings, and typed and handwritten design notes, flowcharts, etc. Includes "Report on the algorithmic language Genie" by Mary Shaw, January 1964.
Program listings, and typed and handwritten design notes, flowcharts, etc. Includes root finders, base 2 exp and log, etc., polynomials, etc.
Program listings, and typed and handwritten design notes, flowcharts, etc. - real and complex scalar trig, etc. For documentation, see the library section of the Programming Systems manual.
Program listings, and typed and handwritten design notes, flowcharts, etc. - real matrix operations. For documentation, see the library section of the Programming Systems manual.
Program listings, and typed and handwritten design notes, flowcharts, etc. - complex matrix operations. For documentation, see the library section of the Programming Systems manual.
Program listings, and typed and handwritten design notes, flowcharts, etc. - LENGTH, ROW, COL, MAX, MIN, etc. For documentation, see the library section of the Programming Systems manual.
Program listings, and typed and handwritten design notes, flowcharts, etc. - scope, printer, interval timer, etc. For documentation, see the library section of the Programming Systems manual.
Program listings, and typed and handwritten design notes, flowcharts, etc.
Language definition and program listing for an interpreted language called MIDOL.
Design notes and program listing for implementation of the Euler programming language, as defined in a two-part CACM paper by Wirth and Weber with the title "EULER: a generalization of ALGOL and it formal definition".
Chapters include Introduction, Classification of Data in Storage, Addressing, Stack Operations, Program Branching, Machine Function List, Microprograms. Chapter V (Machine Function List) has several inserts.
The document begins with this text: "Disk Drive: The drive is an AMPEX Model DM312. ..." Was this for the R-2 or the R-1?
Miscellaneous notes for bringing up the R2: "Communicating with R2", "R2 logic instructions", Arithmetic R2 instruction", "Utility routines", "Input-output routines", "Printer output", etc.
Design notes and R1 assembly language code for R2 simulator.
Program listing for assembler for R2, written in R1 assembly language. Presumably written by Gene Mutschler.
Program listing labeled "FILES". There is an interface to a disc drive or file system, with sections reading in or writing core files to disk, disk storage control, add user id to DIDR, clear disk track, open and close files, execute channel control word, get/put. Those routines each talked about two different entry points, R1 and R2.
Program listing labeled "R2 OS". Apparently written in R2 assembly language. First section has the title STEX - Storage Exchange Program, and the author Alan Beale. Subsequent sections apparently deal with concerned with storage management and process management.
"A user would sign up for a ten-minute block of computer time; this is another reason that graduate students would tend to work in the middle of the night, when they could use the machine uninterrupted for long periods. Verification was handled in an interesting manner: a user would get a "key"--a printed circuit board whose characteristics allowed determination of who was using the machine. Insertion of this key into a slot would cause a paper tape to be punched, so a log of machine use could be produced.
Chesnut recounts that he once noticed an intermittent floating point error that seemed to occur once a minute while he was using the machine. The only other sixty-second clock he could think of was the key; the problem, in fact, was that the lead carrying the pulse of data from the key had been routed too close to the accumulator and would scramble its contents." [Thornton 1996]
[Thornton 1996] cites the original: "[50] Rice University Presents 'The Completed Computer'. Houston: KUHT Film Productions, 1961. Kinescope recording print, running time 29:30."
