The AN/UYK-8 used the same 30 bit word and instruction set of the AN/USQ-17 and AN/USQ-20 Navy Tactical Data System (NTDS) computers, but could have two processors instead of just one.

Instructions were represented as 30 bit words, in the following format: 

  f  6 bits   function code 
  j  3 bits   jump condition designator 
  k  3 bits   partial word designator 
  b  3 bits   which index register to use 
  y  15 bits  operand address in memory
Numbers were represented as 30 bit words, this allowed for five 6 bit alphanumeric characters per word.

The main memory was increased to 262,144 words of core memory.

The available registers were:

  • one 30 bit arithmetic (A) register.
  • a contiguous 30 bit Q register (total of 60 bits for the result of multiplication or the dividend in division).
  • seven 15 bit index (B) registers.