[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Military computing technology, 1960 (Page 1 of 2)
Posted: 12/16/2011 10:28:26 AM EDT
|
The light gun marking an object to track is a nice touch. Amazing how primitive things were back then, controlling all those nukes.  |
|
I took a tour of a Nike missile site a while ago. It was neat seeing some of the old military tech and hardware.
http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_1_5/1060405_Inside_a_restored_Nike_missile_site__Pic_heavy_.html (Pic heavy) |
|
Quoted:
With all the power of a PS2  Not even that! The AN/AWG-10A radar in the F4 had a whopping 2k of iron core memory. 2048 little iron doughnuts hand sewn together with fine copper thread to hold the program used to compute a AIM-7 air-to-air missile intercept. Damn amazing when you think about it. |
|
Quoted:
Quoted:
With all the power of a PS2 Not even that! The AN/AWG-10A radar in the F4 had a whopping 2k of iron core memory. 2048 little iron doughnuts hand sewn together with fine copper thread to hold the program used to compute a AIM-7 air-to-air missile intercept. Damn amazing when you think about it. Those old core memories were pretty cool looking. One would make a nice paper weight. |
|
If a PS2 fell into the AF's hands back in the days of THAT system, and it came with enough information and software to put some bright young engineer to work on learning how to use it and develop on it, then the result would be a game console locked away under the highest level of secrecy that there is a classification for, and it would be running the whole strategic order of battle. Hell, a PS ONE would be orders of magnitude more capable than that old IBM system. An Atari 2600 would have been more powerful. I don't look at that old stuff as primitive. Just as early development, and the military pushed the technology to its limits at every opportunity, driving future development of computers at a pretty impressive clip. Our government has always been THE major single buyer of supercomputers. You could bet that most supercomputers on order, from the 70s on into the early 2000s, were for government customers. CJ |
|
Quoted:
Wow, so Missile Command the game actually had a better user interface than the real missile command? Missile Command the game had better user interface than the Patriot Missile system, probably still does. I used to operate one of those, I would have killed for a simple Atari joystick. |
|
Quoted:
If a PS2 fell into the AF's hands back in the days of THAT system, and it came with enough information and software to put some bright young engineer to work on learning how to use it and develop on it, then the result would be a game console locked away under the highest level of secrecy that there is a classification for, and it would be running the whole strategic order of battle. Hell, a PS ONE would be orders of magnitude more capable than that old IBM system. An Atari 2600 would have been more powerful. I don't look at that old stuff as primitive. Just as early development, and the military pushed the technology to its limits at every opportunity, driving future development of computers at a pretty impressive clip. Our government has always been THE major single buyer of supercomputers. You could bet that most supercomputers on order, from the 70s on into the early 2000s, were for government customers. CJ Something like 75% of all supercomputing went to nuclear bomb research, and the rest to crypto. Probably still does. |
|
Quoted:
I wouldn't get too smug about how primitive and charming all those 1960s computers look. Fifty years from now our hot shit iPhones and laptops will look like great-grandmother's victrola. My Grandma was born in 1970. I saw some old pictures of her where she was holding this little box up to her head. When I asked her what it was, she said it was a smart phone. Ha! What's so smart about a phone that's not even integrated into your nervous system. Old people are funny.
|
.
|
Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
Wow, so Missile Command the game actually had a better user interface than the real missile command? Dude. Missile Command was our trainer up in Greely. Jane's Fleet Command and Dangerous Waters are good if you ever want to qualify as a TAO. Had a lot of fun with that game. |
|
Quoted:
Quoted:
With all the power of a PS2 Not even that! The AN/AWG-10A radar in the F4 had a whopping 2k of iron core memory. 2048 little iron doughnuts hand sewn together with fine copper thread to hold the program used to compute a AIM-7 air-to-air missile intercept. Damn amazing when you think about it. or maybe 
|
|
Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: With all the power of a PS2 Not even that! The AN/AWG-10A radar in the F4 had a whopping 2k of iron core memory. 2048 little iron doughnuts hand sewn together with fine copper thread to hold the program used to compute a AIM-7 air-to-air missile intercept. Damn amazing when you think about it. https://encrypted-tbn2.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSY0XyKfGzS23KqBdHVRxweId2BtDWFycBH3nLXN-irLm0zJE1k or maybe |
|
SAGE.
Light pointing gun? Primitive form of the mouse. First mainframe computer. First real use of what we now know as a modem. Pretty much the early form of what we all know and love,the Internet.(knock one SAGE center out..there were 19,and another could take over). Linked radars of both DoD and FAA into a common system. A helluva system of controlling a very in-depth air defense. DEW Line/Pine Tree Line/ADC Interceptors/ BoMARC/Army ARADCOM(and when ashore,USN Interceptor squadrons too,as part of ADC). It's downfall was the ICBM,couldn't track nor intercept. Most of these huge concrete windowless buildings still exists,anyone who went through processing at Ft Lee VA,the big white building was a SAGE center. |
|
When I first started in the communications field (courtesy of the USN), we used baudot code on five-level paper tape. 
We were required to be able to hold the tape in our hands and be able to read it at 50 characters per minute. We wish we had computers. Yes, I'm old. |
|
Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
With all the power of a PS2 Not even that! The AN/AWG-10A radar in the F4 had a whopping 2k of iron core memory. 2048 little iron doughnuts hand sewn together with fine copper thread to hold the program used to compute a AIM-7 air-to-air missile intercept. Damn amazing when you think about it. https://encrypted-tbn2.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSY0XyKfGzS23KqBdHVRxweId2BtDWFycBH3nLXN-irLm0zJE1k or maybe  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P12r8DKHsak
Great clip!! I remember when I 1st saw that- I was just amazed at how it was built- and that it would even work. 
|
|
Quoted:
Both the F-102 and F-106s could be computer guided by SAGE system to intercept Soviet bombers. The F-106 even had a primitive form of a GPS,a moving map.
and now we have manned aircraft interceptors that are all stealthy and shit. Have we progressed or regressed? Don't know how the Tu-95's would do at 50k ft,but pre-Century series,our B-36s/B-47s/B-52s pretty much flew around at will,while F-86s(and the like)would go into stall well before reaching 50k ft. And the Soviet bombers carried some HUGE bombs,on the order of 20-30Mt. |
|
Quoted:
When I first started in the communications field (courtesy of the USN), we used baudot code on five-level paper tape. http://www.diycalculator.com/imgs/paper-03.gif http://65.111.167.185/B/a/u/Baudot_code.png We were required to be able to hold the tape in our hands and be able to read it at 50 characters per minute. We wish we had computers. Yes, I'm old. Holy smokes. I've loaded a bunch of programs from paper tape, but I didn't have to read it! I always admired the fine paper dust left in the reader. |
|
Quoted:
I took a tour of a Nike missile site a while ago. It was neat seeing some of the old military tech and hardware. http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_1_5/1060405_Inside_a_restored_Nike_missile_site__Pic_heavy_.html (Pic heavy) Ed Thelen's compendium of ALL THINGS NIKE |
|
Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
Wow, so Missile Command the game actually had a better user interface than the real missile command? Dude. Missile Command was our trainer up in Greely. Jane's Fleet Command and Dangerous Waters are good if you ever want to qualify as a TAO. Had a lot of fun with that game. I have Fleet Command, but Harpoon is worlds better for training. |
|
Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
Wow, so Missile Command the game actually had a better user interface than the real missile command? Dude. Missile Command was our trainer up in Greely. Jane's Fleet Command and Dangerous Waters are good if you ever want to qualify as a TAO. Had a lot of fun with that game. I have Fleet Command, but Harpoon is worlds better for training. I will defer to our SWO for that judgement. |
|
Quoted:
Quoted:
When I first started in the communications field (courtesy of the USN), we used baudot code on five-level paper tape. http://www.diycalculator.com/imgs/paper-03.gif http://65.111.167.185/B/a/u/Baudot_code.png We were required to be able to hold the tape in our hands and be able to read it at 50 characters per minute. We wish we had computers. Yes, I'm old. Holy smokes. I've loaded a bunch of programs from paper tape, but I didn't have to read it! I always admired the fine paper dust left in the reader. We weren't necessarily reading it as much as needing to be able to recognize the characters in order to make corrections and editing. The dots left behind are called......chad. A word that became far more well know after the 2000 election. |
|
In 1973 I was a sophomore in high school. I was in a computer class that had a Texas Instruments card reading computer. We had to program the cards and then run the program. It was a simple math problem and took for ever to program all the cards. I think maybe 2 people out of 20 got the program to run successfully. I wasn't one of them. I hated computers for a long time after that. |
|
Try this on for size: http://sites.google.com/site/samsimulator1972/home |
