Intercom Programming System

Intercom was an early 1960s programming system used in computing environments like the Bendix G-15, this is not to be confused with SCOPE/INTERCOM of Control Data. It featured two versions:

• Intercom 500 – an easy-to-use, self-contained system requiring no specialized knowledge; provided facilities for computer control, program preparation, input, output, and program checkout.
• Intercom 1000 – similar to Intercom 500, with support for single-precision and double-precision operations, and program control, I/O, and program check-out functions.

Interface and Command Structure

Intercom internally used binary representation for commands and data, but all user interactions were performed using sexadecimal (base-16) notation. A rich set of terminal command statements is described in the Intercom Version 5 Reference Manual and accompanying Command Summary.

References

• INTERCOM 500 programming system manual (APG-06611) — BitSavers.
• Bendix G-15 Technical Bulletin — BitSavers.
• INTERCOM Command Summary; INTERCOM Version 5 Reference Manual — BitSavers.
• Technical Applications Memos: sexadecimal notation use — BitSavers.