Operation of the Eclipse Console

    Operation of the Eclipse S/230 programmer's console is substantially similar to that of the Nova console ; the main change is that some of the operating controls are in different places.

    The relocated controls are the RESET/STOP switch, the EXAMINE/EXAMINE NEXT, the DEPOSIT/DEPOSIT NEXT, and the START/CONTINUE controls.

    The RESET/STOP control is the leftmost switch on the Eclipse console, the DEPOSIT/DEPOSIT NEXT the rightmost, START/CONTINUE is located at the second from rightmost, and EXAMINE/EXAMINE NEXT is fifth from the right.

    The MEMORY STEP/INST STEP toggle (on the Eclipse, fourth from the rightmost) was changed to a INST/µ INST meaning to reflect the conversion to a microcoded architecture. The PROGRAM LOAD button was changed to have two positions, the other being EXEC which allows an instruction to be placed into the switches and directly executed; this new control is third from the right.

    A couple of new doodads entered the design on this machine; I'll cover those here and let the reader peruse the Nova console section for operating details on the rest.

    On the Eclipse, a third row of lights was added; this new indicator section showed primarily the microprogram address currently in execution (singularly useless for programmers unless the WCS option was installed) and also displayed the ION and CARRY data. New to the Eclipse was the "User Mode" of execution; this datum is also displayed in the third row of indicators.

    The rotary switch just to the right of the indicator panel was also a new feature in the 16-bit Eclipse line; this control allowed an operator (or more likely a field engineer) to monitor the contents of a memory address (entered into the data switches) in the data lights, stop the processor on a memory write to a specified address, or stop the processor on any access to a given memory address. Whenever a "stop on address" action was taken, the "ADDR COMPARE" indicator in the top row would illuminate to indicate that the processor had stopped on that address. Guess what! The LOCK position on the power switch all of a sudden became very important.

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