This was a 16 bit computer built with ECL and was competitive with other first generation minicomputers. Its most distinctive hard were features were memory- mapped 1/0, and early version of segmented memory. The latter together with two execution states made possible the implementation of a self protecting operating system kernel. Such ideas were popular in British academia at the time and latter were adopted by some us designs such as the intel 8086. Furthermore, the power system was set up as a peripheral with interrupt capabilities that gave the machine the ability to power down gracefully in an emergency .
An important idea in modular on was that the main memory was much like another peripheral for instance a printer, but was both input and other output , when an instruction was retrieved from memory , the request went out over a cable on two meters long to another box also about one meter cubed. IT was thought that a voltage edge was faster than a pulse, So a request was represented by a single voltage transition . The word being read would travel the one or two meters, and then because reading magnetic-core memory destroys its contents it would be sent to be re written back to where it had been.
The modular on was comparatively expensive. It was somewhat exotic in that its modular design resulted in almost every system delivered being somewhat different, Which created a leigh maintenance burden. It never sold widely outside of the UK, and even in the it was surpassed in sales by DEC and data general before the end of the 1970s. The system were cost reduced with new technology over the mid '70s, to mid '80s, but never gained a significant market share.
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