prehistory of heterogenous computing

Back in the days before big iron, when radix sorts and prefix sums  
were done on heterogenous, special-purpose meter-scale processing  
elements and throughput computing scaled up to several thousands of  
records per hour, they'd apparently already recognized the value of  
loop unrolling -- quite literally!

Tape-Controlled Carriage, IBM 407 manual of operation* p.121
> The marking for one form should be repeated as
> many times as the usable length of the tape (22
> inches) will allow.  With the tape thus serving to
> control several forms in one revolution through the
> sensing mechanism, the life of the tape is increased.


-Dave

* IBM 407 Accounting Machine 1953 (Form 22-5765-7)
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/punchedCard/AccountingMachine/ 
22-5765-7_407_Operation_1953.pdf

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