The original 1700 was constructed using air-cooled CDC 6600-like cordwood logic modules and core memory, although later models used different technology.
The final models, called Cyber-18, added four general-purpose registers and a number of instructions to support a time-sharing operating system.
[2] The 1700 uses ones' complement arithmetic and an ASCII-based character set, and supports memory write protection on an individual word basis.
The Cyber 18 series, exploiting the extended instruction set, ran a disk-based OS, the Interactive Terminal Oriented System (ITOS).
The 1700 series found use as communications concentrators, Digigraphics workstations, remote batch job entry stations, and industrial process controllers.
Another was used as Maintenance and Diagnostic SubSystem (M&DSS) for the AN/FPQ-16 Perimeter Acquisition Radar Attack Characterization System (PARCS), located at Cavalier Air Force Station (CAFS) in North Dakota; this CDC 1700 is still being used as of this writing (2016).