A QUICK SERVICE COMPUTER

Computers were originally developed with the idea that programs would be written to solve general classes of problems and that after an initial period most of the computer time would be spent in running these standard programs with new sets of data. This view completely underestimated the variety of uses to which computers would be put. The actual situation is much closer to the opposite extreme, wherein each user of the machine has to write his own program and that once this program is debugged, one run solves the problem. This means that the time required to solve the problem consists mainly of time required to debug the program. This time is substantially reduced by the use of better programming languages such as Fortran, LISP (the language the Artificial Intelligence Group is developing for symbolic manipulations) and COMIT (Yngve's language). However, a further large reduction can be achieved by reducing the response time of the computation center.

The response time of the MIT Computation Center to a performance request presently varies from 3 hours to 36 hours depending on the state of the machine, the efficiency of the operator, and the backlog of work. We propose by time sharing, to reduce this response time to the order of 1 second for certain purposes. Let us first consider how the proposed system looks to the user before we consider how it is to be achieved.

Suppose the average program to be debugged consists of 500 instructions plus standard subroutines and that the time required under the present system for an average debugging run is 3 minutes. This is time enough to execute 7,000,000 704 instructions or to execute each instruction in the program l4,000 times.

Most of the errors in programs could be found by single- stepping or multiple-stepping the program as used to be done. If the program is debugged in this way, the program will usually execute each instruction not more than 10 times, 1/1400 as many executions as at present. Of course, because of slow human re- actions the old system was even more wasteful of computer time than the present one. Where, however, does all the computer time go?

At present most of the computer time is spent in conversion (SAP-binary, decimal-binary, binary-decimal, binary-octal) and in writing tape and reading tape and cards.

Why is so much time spent in conversion and input output.

1. Every trial run requires a fresh set of conversions.
2. Because of the slow response time of the system it is necessary to take large dumps for fear of not being able to find the error. The large dumps are mainly unread, but nevertheless, they are necessary. To see why this is so, consider the behavior of a programmer reading his dump. He looks at where the program stopped. Then he looks at the registers containing the partial results so far computed. This suggests looking at a certain point in the program. The programmer may find his mistake after looking at not more than 20 registers out of say 1000 dumped, but to have predicted which 20 would have been impossible in advance and to have reduced the 1000 substantially would have required cleverness as subject to error as his program. The programmer could have taken a run to get the first register looked at, then another run for the second, etc., but this would have required 60 hours at least of elapsed time to find the bug according to our assumptions and a large amount of computer time for repeated loading and re-runnings. The response time of the sheet paper containing the dump for any register is only a few seconds which is OK except that one dump does not usually contain information enough to get the entire program correct.

Suppose that the programmer has a keyboard at the computer and is equipped with a substantial improvement on the TXO interro- gation and intervention program (UT3). (The improvements are in the direction of expressing input and output in a good programming language.) Then he can try his program, interrogate individual pieces of data or program to find an error, make a change in the source language and try again.

If he can write program in source language directly into the computer and have it checked as he writes it, he can save additional time. The ability to check out a program immediately after writing it saves still more time by using the fresh memory of the programmer. I think a factor of 5 can be gained in the speed of getting pro- grams written and working over present practice if the above- mentioned facilities are provided. There is another way of using these facilities which was discussed by S. Ulam a couple of years ago. This is to use the computer for trial and error procedures where the error correction is performed by a human adjusting parameter.

The only way quick response can be provided at a bearable cost is by time-sharing. That is, the computer must attend to other customers while one customer is reacting to some output.