A time- and memory-sharing executive program for quick-response on-line applications

The TX-2 Computer, an experimental facility at M.I.T. Lincoln Laboratory, has been in operation since 1960. Never a service facility, the computer has been used principally in a number of long-term research projects that have taken advantage of the special input/output capabilities and the direct accessibility of the machine. These projects have included graphics, waveform processing, and pattern recognition. Most of the work on the computer has involved real-time inputs, interaction with output displays, or both. The computer has always been used as an on-line facility with the bulk of its time allotted in sessions of several hours duration. Programming has been in machine language, augmented in the past by a number of personal macro languages and recently by a more general macro language for list processing (CORAL). An on-line macro assembler, MK 4, has been used both as an assembly program and on-line operating system by most users.