Operating Experience with Raydac

THE RA YDAC acceptance tests were run from June 4 to July 19, 1952, in five sessions of 3 days each. The tests were divided into three phases. Phase 1 consisted of programmed test routines which caused each unit of the computer to go through its various combinations of operations. This included tests of the terminal equipment, central control, and internal memory; the arithmetic unit; and the external memory. Phase 1 also included an exhaustive test of all checking and error-detecting circuits. Phase 2 was a single mass data-handling problem calling for large volumes of input and output data with relatively little actual computation. Phase 3 consisted of the solution of a full-length physical problem to which a reliable numerical solution was already available.