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Source: ndwiki article "NORD-2B"

  • Live page: https://www.ndwiki.org/wiki/NORD-2B
  • Copy used here: Wayback Machine snapshot, fetched 2026-08-27 by Ronny's request. The live ndwiki is behind an Anubis proof-of-work gate.

Status: SECONDARY, a stub, and openly unsure of its own dates - but it is the only real information we have on this machine.

"Little is known about the NORD-2B. It appears to have specs similar to the NORD-1, with 4kw - 16kw core memory. It was a simplified and less costly version of the NORD-1."

Where they went: a substantial number at CERN, and various Norwegian sites. One of those was Norway's National Centre for Epilepsy, where - in what the page calls a pioneering application - a NORD-2B processed live EEG signals from patients to automatically detect and quantify certain types of epileptic seizure.

On dating, the page is careful: "Possibly 1970, or at least development finishing in 1970", supported by two outside quotations - that in 1970 ND teamed with Siemens on a packet-switching network based on "Norsk Data's new Nord 2B machines" for the Norwegian Air Force Supply Service, and that the NORD-2B Hardware Manual is dated December 1970.

From Shipping World and Shipbuilder, 1972: two NORD-2B computers, each with 16K memory, talking to each other over a data channel and sharing a common I/O system.

Survivor: NORD-2B serial 05 in the Telemuseum collection, marked 8019.

Two manuals exist and are linked from the page - NORD-2B Hardware Manual Volume 1, Logic Diagrams, December 1970, and NORD-2B I/O System, March 1971, both as PDF and OCR'd PDF, from the Tingo collection. Neither is in this repo.

Verbatim extract

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Little is known about the NORD-2B. It appears to have specs similar to the NORD-1, with 4kw - 16kw core memory. It was a simplified and less costly version of the NORD-1. A substantial number of NORD-2B computers were installed at CERN in Geneve, and also at various Norwegian sites. One of these was Norway's National Centre for Epilepsy (named "Statens Senter for Epilepsi" at the time). In a pioneering application the NORD-2B was used to process live electroencephalography (EEG) signals from patients to automatically detect and quantify certain types of epileptic seizures.

Front view of the NORD-2B in the Telemuseum collection.

Year of introduction: Possibly 1970, or at least development finishing in 1970. From an article: "In 1970, ND teamed with Siemens and obtained a contract to build a packet-switching network (based on Norsk Data's new Nord 2B machines) for the Norwegian Air Force Supply Service." Also, the NORD-2B Hardware Manual is dated December 1970.

From "Shipping World and Shipbuilder", 1972: "Two NORD 2B computers (each with a 16k memory) communicate with each other through a data channel (ACM) and are connected to the process through a common I/O system. This makes it possible to run PAC functions on both computers."

Remaining machines

This is a first shot at a list of remaining machines. Also machines that are known to be lost will be listed to make it easier to locate remaining ones. We don't have any production numbers yet.

  • NORD-2B serial 05, unknown condition but looks nice from the outside. In the collection of Telemuseum.[1]

See also

  • NORD-20

Sources

  • ^ NORD-2B in the collection of Telemuseum, marked 8019
  • Physical manuals in the collection of Tingo
  • NORD-2B - Hardware Manual - Volume 1 - Logic Diagrams (December 1970) (pdf) (pdf with OCR)
  • NORD-2B - I/O System (March 1971) (pdf) (pdf with OCR)