Naval Tactical Data System
Encyclopedia
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
in the 1950s and first deployed in the early 1960s for use in combat ship
Surface warfare
Modern naval warfare is divided into three operational areas: surface warfare, air warfare and submarine warfare. Each area comprises specialized platforms and strategies used to exploit tactical advantages unique and inherent to that area....
s.
Reason for development
Warships have rooms known as Combat Information CenterCombat Information Center
The Operations Room is the tactical center of a warship or AWAC aircraft providing processed information for command and control of the near battle space or 'area of operations'...
s, or CICs. Until the advent of computers compact and robust enough to be used in ship
Ship
Since the end of the age of sail a ship has been any large buoyant marine vessel. Ships are generally distinguished from boats based on size and cargo or passenger capacity. Ships are used on lakes, seas, and rivers for a variety of activities, such as the transport of people or goods, fishing,...
s at sea, collection and display of such information as the position of aircraft
Aircraft
An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air, or, in general, the atmosphere of a planet. An aircraft counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines.Although...
, ships, and submarines was done manually. NTDS was the United States Navy's first step in automating this information flow for use in attack or defense, to reduce the chance of error and to allow CICs to cope with a denser, faster-moving threat environment. With NTDS and wireless data links, ships could share the information gathered by their sensors with other ships in a task force. NTDS was the inspiration for the Aegis
Aegis combat system
The Aegis Combat System is an integrated naval weapons system developed by the Missile and Surface Radar Division of RCA, and now produced by Lockheed Martin...
system now in use on Navy ships.
Hardware description
A variety of UNIVACUNIVAC
UNIVAC is the name of a business unit and division of the Remington Rand company formed by the 1950 purchase of the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation, founded four years earlier by ENIAC inventors J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, and the associated line of computers which continues to this day...
embedded
Embedded system
An embedded system is a computer system designed for specific control functions within a larger system. often with real-time computing constraints. It is embedded as part of a complete device often including hardware and mechanical parts. By contrast, a general-purpose computer, such as a personal...
computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
s, including the first fielded version of the late 1950s, the CP-642A (AN/USQ-20
AN/USQ-20
The AN/USQ-20, or Naval Tactical Data System , was designed as a more reliable replacement for the AN/USQ-17 with the same instruction set. The first batch of 17 computers were delivered to the Navy starting in early 1961. A version of the AN/USQ-20 for use by the other military services and NASA...
), typically with 30 bit
Bit
A bit is the basic unit of information in computing and telecommunications; it is the amount of information stored by a digital device or other physical system that exists in one of two possible distinct states...
words, 32K words of magnetic core memory
Memory
In psychology, memory is an organism's ability to store, retain, and recall information and experiences. Traditional studies of memory began in the fields of philosophy, including techniques of artificially enhancing memory....
, 16 parallel I/O
I/O
I/O may refer to:* Input/output, a system of communication for information processing systems* Input-output model, an economic model of flow prediction between sectors...
channel
Channel (communications)
In telecommunications and computer networking, a communication channel, or channel, refers either to a physical transmission medium such as a wire, or to a logical connection over a multiplexed medium such as a radio channel...
s (also 30 bits wide) connected to radars and other peripheral
Peripheral
A peripheral is a device attached to a host computer, but not part of it, and is more or less dependent on the host. It expands the host's capabilities, but does not form part of the core computer architecture....
s, and a RISC-like instruction set, were used. Logic circuits used discrete transistors and other elements solder
Solder
Solder is a fusible metal alloy used to join together metal workpieces and having a melting point below that of the workpiece.Soft solder is what is most often thought of when solder or soldering are mentioned and it typically has a melting range of . It is commonly used in electronics and...
ed to a printed circuit board with connectors running along one side. Each card was coated in a varnish
Varnish
Varnish is a transparent, hard, protective finish or film primarily used in wood finishing but also for other materials. Varnish is traditionally a combination of a drying oil, a resin, and a thinner or solvent. Varnish finishes are usually glossy but may be designed to produce satin or semi-gloss...
-like substance to prevent exposure to corrosion-inducing salt spray. A number of cards were connected and secured to a tray on rollers. In turn, several trays of various types, interconnected and secured to a metal enclosure, constituted the computer. Most NTDS computers were water-cooled, though some later lighter-weight models were air-cooled.
Seymour Cray and the NTDS
Seymour CraySeymour Cray
Seymour Roger Cray was an American electrical engineer and supercomputer architect who designed a series of computers that were the fastest in the world for decades, and founded Cray Research which would build many of these machines. Called "the father of supercomputing," Cray has been credited...
is credited for developing the first NTDS processor, the AN/USQ-17
AN/USQ-17
The AN/USQ-17 or Naval Tactical Data System computer referred to in Sperry Rand documents as the Univac M-460, was Seymour Cray's last design for UNIVAC...
. However, this design did not go into production.
ASW Command & Control System
ASW Ships Command & Control System (ASWSC&CS) was a NTDS system for antisubmarine warfare. It was implemented only on the USS Voge (FF-1047), USS Koelsch (FF-1049) and the ASW aircraft carrier USS Wasp (CVS-18) in 1966. The ASWSC&CS allowed the development of improvements in antisubmarine warfare using digital computers, which were implemented in other ASW ship classes. UNIVACUNIVAC
UNIVAC is the name of a business unit and division of the Remington Rand company formed by the 1950 purchase of the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation, founded four years earlier by ENIAC inventors J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, and the associated line of computers which continues to this day...
was contracted to define the hardware and develop the software to incorporate ASW functions.
See also
- Air Defense Control Center
- Combat Information CenterCombat Information CenterThe Operations Room is the tactical center of a warship or AWAC aircraft providing processed information for command and control of the near battle space or 'area of operations'...
- Joint Tactical Information Distribution SystemJoint Tactical Information Distribution SystemThe Joint Tactical Information Distribution System is an L band TDMA network radio system used by the United States armed forces and their allies to support data communications needs, principally in the air and missile defense community...
- Mission Control CenterMission Control CenterA mission control center is an entity that manages aerospace vehicle flights, usually from the point of lift-off until the landing or the end of the mission. A staff of flight controllers and other support personnel monitor all aspects of the mission using telemetry, and send commands to the...
- Tactical communicationsTactical communicationsTactical communications are communications in which information of any kind, especially orders and decisions, are conveyed from one command, person, or place to another within tactical forces. In modern times, this is usually done by electronic means....
- MIL-STD-1397MIL-STD-1397MIL-STD-1397 standard was issued by the United States Department of Defense to define "the requirements for the physical, functional and electrical characteristics of a standard I/O data interface for digital data." The MIL-STD-1397 classification types A, B and D apply specifically to the Naval...
External links
- UNIVAC-NTDS: UNIVAC 1206, AN/USQ-20 – From the Antique Computer website
- http://www.uss-king.com/ntds.shtml
- Naval systems - VIP Club - retirees from UNISYSUnisysUnisys Corporation , headquartered in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, United States, and incorporated in Delaware, is a long established business whose core products now involves computing and networking.-History:...
and Lockheed Martin MS2Lockheed Martin Maritime Systems and SensorsLockheed Martin Mission Systems & Sensors is a Lockheed Martin business segment, headquartered in Washington, DC. Until October 2008 MS2 was headquartered in Moorestown Township, New Jersey, a suburb of Philadelphia; Moorestown remains the largest site in the business unit and is where many of the... - Engineering Research Associates (ERA)-Remington Rand-Sperry Rand Records, 1945-1988, Charles Babbage InstituteCharles Babbage InstituteThe Charles Babbage Institute is a research center at the University of Minnesota specializing in the history of information technology, particularly the history since 1935 of digital computing, programming/software, and computer networking....
, University of Minnesota. See series Jay A. Kershaw Records, 1955-1965 including day files and memoranda related to his work as peripherals manager on the Naval Tactical Data System (NTDS) at Sperry Univac.