Burroughs AN/FST-2 Coordinate Data Transmitting Set

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The Burroughs AN/FST-2 Coordinate Data Transmitting Set (CDTS) was a Cold War military computer system at SAGE radar stations for displaying aircraft tracks and converting them for digital transmission to IBM AN/FSQ-7 Combat Direction Centrals at air defense data centers. Developed by the Great Valley Research Laboratory of the Burroughs Corporation as part of the Electronic Systems Division's 416L network of computers, [1] :241 134 CDTSs were deployed. [2] Each was to "process the raw radar data, antenna position information, and IFF data, and send it over voice grade toll phone lines" [3] at ~1200 baud with 1/4 mile precision. [4] The transmissions were received as "Long Range Radar Input" at SAGE Direction Centers, which performed the aircraft control and warning operations (e.g., launch and flight control for CIM-10 Bomarc SAMs) and provided command information to Command Centers which forwarded data to the NORAD command center in Colorado (Ent AFB, 1963 Chidlaw Building, and the 1966 Cheyenne Mountain Complex). The AN/FST-2A included 2 vacuum tube computers and accepted 14 input signals (32 inputs for transistorized AN/FST-2B sets). [5]

Cold War State of geopolitical tension after World War II between powers in the Eastern Bloc and the Western Bloc

The Cold War was a period of geopolitical tension between the Soviet Union with its satellite states, and the United States with its allies after World War II. A common historiography of the conflict begins with 1946, the year U.S. diplomat George F. Kennan's "Long Telegram" from Moscow cemented a U.S. foreign policy of containment of Soviet expansionism threatening strategically vital regions, and ending between the Revolutions of 1989 and the 1991 collapse of the USSR, which ended communism in Eastern Europe. The term "cold" is used because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two sides, but they each supported major regional conflicts known as proxy wars.

Semi-Automatic Ground Environment

The Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) was a system of large computers and associated networking equipment that coordinated data from many radar sites and processed it to produce a single unified image of the airspace over a wide area. SAGE directed and controlled the NORAD response to a Soviet air attack, operating in this role from the late 1950s into the 1980s. Its enormous computers and huge displays remain a part of cold war lore, and a common prop in movies such as Dr. Strangelove and Colossus.

Burroughs Corporation company

The Burroughs Corporation was a major American manufacturer of business equipment. The company was founded in 1886 as the American Arithmometer Company, and after the 1986 merger with Sperry UNIVAC was renamed Unisys. The company's history paralleled many of the major developments in computing. At its start, it produced mechanical adding machines, and later moved into programmable ledgers and then computers. It was one of the largest producers of mainframe computers in the world, also producing related equipment including typewriters and printers.

External images
Searchtool.svg "AN/FST-2 in SAGE System"
Searchtool.svg AN/FST-2 data flow to AN/FSQ-7
Searchtool.svg end view of racks
Searchtool.svg OA-1204 & -367 consoles

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References

  1. ↑ History of Strategic and Ballistic Missile Defense, 1945-1955: Volume I (PDF).
  2. ↑ Gray, George (March 1999). "Some Burroughs Transistor Computers". Unisys History Newsletter. 3 (1). Archived from the original on October 1, 2016. The Burroughs Great Valley Research Laboratory at Paoli outside Philadelphia… When the system was complete, 134 of these data communications devices had been installed.
  3. ↑ "AN/FST-2, RADAR Data Processor/Network System". Williamson-Labs.com. Retrieved 2013-01-24. took raw analog radar data, along with operator overlaid masking (editing), digitized it, and placed it on voice grade toll telephone lines. … The AN/FST-2 used about 8000 vacuum tubes in three bays of racks.
  4. ↑ "AN/FST-2 Radar Data Processing System" . Retrieved 2013-01-24. Each system processes data all the time but only the active system transmits data to the direction center and controls the height finder radar. … Data was [digitized] in quarter mile increments. One radar quarter mile was 3.09 microseconds.
  5. ↑ "Transmitting Set Coordinate Data". Radar.tpub.com. 1965-12-15. Archived from the original on July 30, 2012. Retrieved 2018-02-02.
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