(copyright IBM)
STRETCH (the IBM 7030) is the largest, fastest, operating general purpose computer. It combines fixed word length arithmetic for performing floating point operations with the flexibility of variable word length arithmetic in which the words can be composed of "bytes" with from one to eight bits in a byte. The logic includes "look ahead" of instructions, in which as many as four instructions can be processed simultaneously. The arithmetic unit is extremely fast and the main memory has a two micro-second cycle time with multiple memory modules operating simultaneously. It is extremely difficult, however, to estimate accurate timing for individual instructions because of the complexity of "look ahead" plus the variable length of time required to execute VFL (variable field length) instructions. A reasonable estimate, however, is that approximately 1,000,000 instructions per second can be executed.
