According to Dr. Neelands, certain military people involved in the project were adamant about not relying on "computers", therefore this "information processor" was developed. This high speed 36-bit minicomputer was developed by the GE Heavy Military Electronics Department (HMED) in Syracuse, New York. The M236 was designed for real-time processing in a radar-based missile flight measurement system and lacked some general purpose features, such as overlapped instruction processing, the floating point operations needed for Fortran, and operating system support features, such as base and bounds registers. The M-236 computer was developed for the US Air Force Cape Canaveral Missile Range, and installed at Eleuthera (Bahamas). The 36-bit computer word length was needed for radar tracking computations and for the required exchange of data with an IBM 7094 located at the Cape. The chief architect of the M236 was John Couleur.
According to Dr. Neelands, certai!n military people involved in the project were ada:mant about not relying on "computers", therefore this "information processor" was developed This high speed 36-bit minicomputer was developed by the GE Heavy Military Electronics D,epartment (HMED) in Syracuse, New York. The M236 was designed for real-time processing in a radar-based missile flight measurement system and lacked some general purpose features, such as overlapped instruction processing, the floating point operations needed for Fortran, and operating system suppo,rt features, such as base and bounds registers. The M-236 computer was developed for the US Air Force Cape Canaveral Missile Range, and installed at Eleuthera (Bahamas). The 36-bit computer word length was needed for radar tracking computations and for the required exchange of data with an IBM 709.4 located at the Cape. The chief architect of the M236 was John Couleur.