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The AN/USQ-17 or Naval Tactical Data System (NTDS) computer referred to in Sperry Rand documents as the Univac M-460, was Seymour Cray's last design for UNIVAC. [1] UNIVAC later released a commercial version, the UNIVAC 490. That system was later upgraded to a multiprocessor configuration as the 494.
The machine was the size and shape of a refrigerator, about four feet high (roughly 1.20 meters), with a hinged lid for access. Shortly after completing the prototype design, Cray left to join Control Data Corporation. When the Navy awarded Sperry Rand a US$50 million contract to build the AN/USQ-17, Univac engineers redesigned the entire machine from scratch using silicon transistors. They retained the instruction set, so that programs developed for the original machine would still run on the new one. [2]
As part of the redesign it was decided to improve access, and the second version was designed to stand upright, like an old fashioned double-door refrigerator, about six feet tall (roughly 1.80 m). This new design was designated the AN/USQ-20.
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 32,768 = 32K words of core memory.
The available processor registers were:
The instruction format defined for the AN/USQ-17 marked the beginning of an instruction set which would be carried on, with many changes along the way, into later UNIVAC computers including the UNIVAC 1100/2200 series, which is still in use today [update] .
Control Data Corporation (CDC) was a mainframe and supercomputer company that in the 1960s was one of the nine major U.S. computer companies, which group included IBM, the Burroughs Corporation, and the Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), the NCR Corporation (NCR), General Electric, and Honeywell, RCA and UNIVAC. For most of the 1960s, the strength of CDC was the work of the electrical engineer Seymour Cray who developed a series of fast computers, then considered the fastest computing machines in the world; in the 1970s, Cray left the Control Data Corporation and founded Cray Research (CRI) to design and make supercomputers. In 1988, after much financial loss, the Control Data Corporation began withdrawing from making computers and sold the affiliated companies of CDC; in 1992, Cray established Control Data Systems, Inc. The remaining affiliate companies of CDC currently do business as the software company Ceridian.
Engineering Research Associates, commonly known as ERA, was a pioneering computer firm from the 1950s. ERA became famous for their numerical computers, but as the market expanded they became better known for their drum memory systems. They were eventually purchased by Remington Rand and merged into their UNIVAC department. Many of the company founders later left to form Control Data Corporation.
The UNIVAC I was the first general-purpose electronic digital computer design for business application produced in the United States. It was designed principally by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, the inventors of the ENIAC. Design work was started by their company, Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation (EMCC), and was completed after the company had been acquired by Remington Rand. In the years before successor models of the UNIVAC I appeared, the machine was simply known as "the UNIVAC".
UNIVAC was a line of electronic digital stored-program computers starting with the products of the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation. Later the name was applied to a division of the Remington Rand company and successor organizations.
The AN/USQ-20, or CP-642 or Naval Tactical Data System (NTDS), was designed as a more reliable replacement for the Seymour Cray-designed AN/USQ-17 with the same instruction set. The first batch of 17 computers were delivered to the Navy starting in early 1961.
The AN/UYK-8 was a UNIVAC computer.
The UNIVAC 1100/2200 series is a series of compatible 36-bit computer systems, beginning with the UNIVAC 1107 in 1962, initially made by Sperry Rand. The series continues to be supported today by Unisys Corporation as the ClearPath Dorado Series. The solid-state 1107 model number was in the same sequence as the earlier vacuum-tube computers, but the early computers were not compatible with their solid-state successors.
The UNIVAC 1103 or ERA 1103, a successor to the UNIVAC 1101, is a computer system designed by Engineering Research Associates and built by the Remington Rand corporation in October 1953. It was the first computer for which Seymour Cray was credited with design work.
The UNIVAC 490 was a 30-bit word magnetic-core memory machine with 16K or 32K words; 4.8 microsecond cycle time made by UNIVAC. It was a commercial derivative of the instruction set that had been developed for the AN/USQ-17 by Seymour Cray for the US Navy. This was the last machine that Cray designed before leaving UNIVAC to join the early Control Data Corporation.
CMS-2 is an embedded systems programming language used by the United States Navy. It was an early attempt to develop a standardized high-level computer programming language intended to improve code portability and reusability. CMS-2 was developed primarily for the US Navy’s tactical data systems (NTDS).
The UNIVAC 418 was a transistorized, 18-bit word magnetic-core memory machine made by Sperry Univac. The name came from its 4-microsecond memory cycle time and 18-bit word. The assembly language for this class of computers was TRIM III and ART418.
Naval Tactical Data System (NTDS) was a computerized information processing system developed by the United States Navy in the 1950s and first deployed in the early 1960s for use in combat ships. It took reports from multiple sensors on different ships and collated it to produce a single unified map of the battlespace. This information could then be relayed back to the ships and to the weapons operators.
The surface-barrier transistor is a type of transistor developed by Philco in 1953 as an improvement to the alloy-junction transistor and the earlier point-contact transistor. Like the modern Schottky transistor, it offered much higher speed than earlier transistors and used metal–semiconductor junctions, but unlike the schottky transistor, both junctions were metal–semiconductor junctions.
The AN/UYK-20 "Data Processing Set" was a ruggedized small computer manufactured by Univac and used by the United States Navy for small and medium-sized shipboard and shore systems built in the 1970s. It featured non-volatile magnetic core memory and was housed in a heavy-duty metal cube-shaped box which was designed to fit through a 25-inch circular hatch.
The AN/UYK-44 is the standard 16-bit minicomputer of the United States Navy. The AN/UYK-44 was developed in the early 1980s by Sperry Corporation and was completed in early 1984. The AN/UYK-44 was used in surface ships, submarines, ground C4I platforms, radar and missile control systems. The system was designed to replace the older AN/UYK-20 model.
The AN/UYK-7 was the standard 32-bit computer of the United States Navy for surface ship and submarine platforms, starting in 1970. It was used in the Navy's NTDS & Aegis combat systems and U.S. Coast Guard, and the navies of U.S. allies. It was also used by the U.S. Army.
The CP-823/U, also known as the Univac 1830, was the first digital airborne 30-bit computer. It was engineered, built and tested as the A-NEW MOD3 prototype computer for the Lockheed P-3 Orion.
Howard T. Engstrom was a Yale University mathematics professor and headed research operations at the United States Navy's Communication Supplementary Activities CSAW during World War II. Along with William Norris and others he founded Engineering Research Associates in 1946. He was one of the co-creators of the Univac computer, and served as deputy director of the National Security Agency.
The AN/UYA-4 is a series of system consoles developed by Hughes Aircraft Company for the United States Navy.