The final machine in the series, the CDC 3500, was released in March 1967 and uses integrated circuits instead of discrete components.The 3300 and 3500 have optional relocation capabilities, floating-point arithmetic, and BDP (Business + Data Processing) instructions.Control Data Corporation's CDC 3150 was described as a "batch computer,"[7] and it included a FORTRAN[8] and a COBOL[9] compiler.And as these systems were based on the prior 1604 and 924 instruction sets, some backward compatibility also exists.The lower 3000 CPU uses a 24-bit architecture:[10] instructions are 24 bits in length, as are the two operand registers A and Q.The 3600 CPU can execute around one million instructions per second (1 MIPS), giving it supercomputer status in 1965.The operating systems for the upper 3000 are called SCOPE (Supervisory Control Of Program Execution).Tape SCOPE is a serial batch OS with no buffering for card reading or print spooling.CDC developed a OS for the 3800 called SUMMIT (Simultaneous Usage of Multiprogramming, Multiprocessing with Interactive Timesharing) to take advantage of hardware's advanced features.The earliest operating system for the lower 3000 series was called RTS OS.An APL system for the upper 3000 series computers was developed at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.Typical configuration was 24K words of 24-bit core memory, four 7-track tape drives, drum printer, card reader, card punch, two 8MB disc drives (removable packs).[17][18] A number of CDC 3000s were installed in France, either in academic computing centers, in software companies or in the aeronautics, nuclear and oil industries.The University of Oslo had a CDC 3300 (1967 - 1976)[19] One CDC 3300 was installed in the late 1960s in England, in Computation Research & Development Ltd, a London-based subsidiary of the civil engineering designers Freeman Fox & Partners.CSIRO had a 3600 installed in Canberra in 1964, with satellite 3200 machines in Melbourne, Sydney, and probably Brisbane and Adelaide.
CDC 3000 series family, in basic configuration
Three views of a CDC 3000 series model 3400 with sizing
CDC 3800 console at the
Udvar-Hazy Center
of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum