ND-500
[2] The ND-500 processor employed split data and instruction caches, running with a 110 nanosecond cycle time, along with similarly separated memory management units, thus permitting access to a full 32-bit address space for both program instructions and data.
"[4]: 117 This contrasted strongly with the design of the CPU in its predecessor, the Nord-50, which featured 32-bit instructions in only three formats and the availability of 64 general-purpose registers.
Base registers B and R provide access to local variables and record storage respectively.
Unlike the ND-500, the ND-100 preserves the fixed-size, 16-bit instruction format of the earlier Nord-10 series, but like the ND-500, the ND-100 processor is microprogrammed.
[3] The floating-point processor featured in the ND-500 reportedly consisted of 579 integrated circuits and used a combinatorial approach to support the execution of 64-bit multiplication operations in 480 nanoseconds.
Pins were essentially snipped on the backplane, removing its status as a superminicomputer, allowing it to legally pass the CoCom embargo in force at the time and be exported to the Eastern Bloc.
[citation needed] The ND-5700, ND-5800 and ND-5900 were introduced in 1987 as high-end models, employing "state-of-the-art CMOS gate array technology" to reduce the footprint of the CPU implementation, replacing the 24 circuit boards required in the previous ND-500 architecture models.
[12] Later models were introduced at the low end of the range in the form of the ND-5000 Compact series, aimed at small and medium-size companies and featuring a cabinet size with "modest dimensions", "occupying less than a square metre of floor space", and designed for a conventional office environment, as opposed to a dedicated machine room.
[13] The Compact series generally offered a reported 0.5 to 3.5 million Whetstone instructions per second across the different models.
Norsk Data claimed that this was "the world's largest compatible range" of computers, or perhaps the industry's range with broadest performance characteristics across compatible models, with the top-end ND-5900 Model 4 delivering a claimed 26 million Whetstone instructions per second.
[citation needed] In 1988, with the introduction of Norsk Data's Extended System Architecture, this being the company's open systems strategy, two models of the ND-5000 ES (Extended Server) product were unveiled: the low-end Model S as an "affordable supermini in micro format", and the more powerful Model C as a departmental server based on the ND-5800 SE processor, yielding an almost two-fold performance improvement over earlier products.
It featured automatic indenting, pretty-printing of source code, and integration with the compiler environment.
The purpose of the effort was so that ND could sell the 500 to the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), who were buying VAXes from Digital Equipment Corporation.
