Edward Feustel collection on the Rice University Computer Project
Item Details
Description
The Edward Feustel collection on the Rice University Computer Project (formerly Rice Institute) contains material collected by Feustel while he was employed at Rice University and Prime Computer. The collection spans 1958 to 1989, with some undated material. The material from Rice University documents the Rice University Computer Project, which produced the R1 computer, in full operation from 1961 to 1971. The R1 material includes documentation for R1 hardware and software, source code listings, status reports, and technical papers. The collection also includes some design documents and source codes listings for the R2, which was a planned follow-on to the R1, but whose construction was never completed. Also included are Prime Computer manuals.
Biographical/Historical Note
Edward A. Feustel was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana in 1940. He graduated from MIT in 1964 with simultaneous bachelor of science and master of science degrees in electrical engineering. He then earned a master of arts in 1965 and a PhD in 1967 from Princeton University in electrical engineering, after which he became a research fellow at the California Institute of Technology. Feustel began working at Rice University in 1968 where he participated in the Rice University Computer Project with responsibility for software design and emulation of the R2 computer. Feustel became a tenured associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Rice before leaving in 1979. From 1979 to 1992 Feustel worked at Prime Computer where he was a principal technical consultant. After leaving Prime in 1992, Feustel joined the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) as a member of its research staff until 2000. After IDA, Feustel served as an adjunct faculty member at the Institute for Security Technology Studies (ISTS) from 2000 to 2007 and adjunct professor of computer science at Dartmouth College from 2007 until his retirement in 2012. Throughout his career Feustel published numerous papers on non-parametric detection and computer architecture. Feustel currently resides in Plainfield, New Hampshire.
The Rice University Computer Project (then Rice Institute) was established in 1957 with a grant from the Atomic Energy Commission and an initial contribution from the Shell Development Company. It was led by Dr. Martin Graham, formerly of Brookhaven National Laboratory, with a small technical staff. A large vacuum tube computer known as the R1 was constructed with several innovative features designed to facilitate scientific computation. The internal word length was 56 bits, and the initial memory had 8K words implemented with Radechon cathode ray tubes. 24K words of magnetic core memory were added in 1964. The Radechon tube memory had a word length of 63 bits, which provided 7 bits for a pioneering implementation of a Hamming code error correcting system in the memory interface circuits. Indirect addressing was implemented as well as a feature dedicating two bits of the 56 bit words as tag bits, which could be used in various ways to identify certain data elements, such as an aid in addressing arrays. Console switches could be set to enable program trapping based on selected values of the tag bits which in turn could control program behavior or facilitate program debugging.
Operating system software including an assembler and a compiler was developed by J. K. Iliffe, who joined the project from England in 1958.
The computer was in operation from 1961 through 1971. Its use by science and engineering departments resulted in the publication of more than 60 technical papers. It was one of the most successful of all large vacuum tube computers because of its innovations and usefulness in producing scientific results and providing experience for graduate students in hardware and software design.
Iliffe returned to England and developed the data tag concept much further in a new architecture called the Basic Language Machine. He returned to the Rice Project in 1968 to join in specifying the architecture of a new computer based on the Basic Language Machine, to be constructed at Rice as a follow-on to the R1. The new machine was called the R2 and construction was nearly 90% complete in 1976 when it was abandoned for lack of support.
Polaroid photographs of the people who built and used the Rice R1 computer, pasted into an album. People pictured include: Walter Orvedahl, Martin Graham, Sigsby Rusk, Ruth Patterson, Kenneth Watson, Jim Peale, Joe Bighorse, Douglas Lee, Jane Jodeit, Mary Shaw, Jo. K. Mann, Forest Baskett III, Zevi Salsburg, Donald Stockwell, Dwayne Chesnut, George Carter, Sastry, Robert Curl, V. M. Rao, James Hodgeson, Ronald Sass, Won Bong Bang, Walter Hicks, Charles Bugg, Pearce, Don DuPre, Pat Groves, Earnest Sibert, Frank Tung, A. J. Welch, Gary Sitton, James Colthart, Pat Chappelear, Del Fussell, Anthony Blajez, Earnest Green, Sam Davis, Alan Jackman, Jim Henry, Jurgen Hinze, J. A. Robinson, Steve Darden, John Iliffe, Fred Miller, Jim Lawson, John Kilpatrick, Albert Yu, Chang Cheng Wu, Helen Seagrave, Alan Hoover, Lalu Mansinha, J. C. DeBremaecker, Glenn Fryer, Andre Chang, Vincent Reynard, and Harry A. Deans (missing label).
Describes the computer and how it is programmed, with appendices on the electronics used to implement the computer, a symbolic assembly program, and a sample program. Author not specified, but probably Martin H. Graham and Zevi W. Salsburg according to John K. Iliffe.
Collection of related memos with these titles: (unnumbered) AP1 - a basic assembly program; 1. Array manipulation and the algebraic formula language; 2. Preliminary notes on programming; 3. Some coding conventions, subroutines, and alterations in the order structure; 4. The elements of the Genie system; 5. An intermediate range assembly system; 6. Basic machine codes; (unnumbered) Notes on the Genie compiler for the Rice University computer; (unnumbered) AP1 - AP2 programming.
Reference manual for the Genie language, with information about runtime environment and related utility programs. Author not specified, but predominately Jane G. Jodeit according to John K. Iliffe.
Reference manual for the SPIREL operating system and the assembly system (AP1, AP2, PLACER) for the Rice R1 computer. Originally bound with plastic comb binding.
Complete manual set for the Rice R1 computer, updated through July 1968. Originally in 3-ring binder labeled "PROGRAMMING STAFF COPY." With penciled corrections on some pages.
Title page reads "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."
Title page reads "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."
