Quoted:
Computer Set, AN/UYK-7
We used 'em on the early 688 Class Fast Attack Submarines back in 1987-88. Used for weapon control and also the passive sonar.
Simply turning it on DID NOT BOOT IT UP. There was a maintenance panel with a ton of indicator lamps, switches, and button on it. You had to punch in a bunch of crap just to get the thing to start up!
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I used to work on the AN/UYK-7 project at Sperry Univac in the Twin Cities. How did you like the "laptop"? That piece of big iron has a beast. The lights were the actual display in binary. You just needed to know how to read the address and the data in order to test ti.
I saw a film of the battle-testing of the UYK-7. They bolt it to a heavy platform and turn it on. While it's running, a 1.5 ton hammer swings around and thumps the paltform. The computer needs to run successfully throughout these shocks. If it doesn't, it fails. Someone decided to hook up a 'modern' PC to the platform and run it through the test. Once that hammer hit, the monitor bounced off of the platform, the floppy drive was ejected from the box and every light went dead.
Did you ever have to work with the tape drive? People, I ain't talking about mag tape. We're referring to the era of paper tape with the code punched into it.
I also worked on the AN/UYK-43(42?) and AN/AYK-14 projects.