When Computers Went to Sea

David L. Boslaugh is the author of When Computers Went to Sea: The Digitization of the United States Navy, published by Wiley.

• Preface xxiiiIntroduction 11 Radar—New Eyes for the Fleet 5Beginnings of Radar 5May Day—24 October 1944 5Creation of Radar in the U.S. Navy 11Start of the Naval Research Laboratory Radio Location P r o j e c t . . . 11Tracking Projectiles in Flight—The Battleship New York Tests . . . 13The Plan Position Indicator 14The Baby Gets a Name 15Mass Production 16London—An Easy Target 16Chain Home 16Learning to Use Radar at Sea 19The Most Valuable Cargo 21Radar at War in the Pacific 26McNally's Day of Infamy 26Aboard Lexington 32Aboard the Flying Boats 33The Fighter Director Officers 34CXAM in Action 37Rest in Peace CXAM 39The CXAM Lives On 41Turning Point for McNally 42Evolution of the Combat Information Center 44The Kamikazes 49Divine Wind 49Floating Chrysanthemum 512 A Lingering Problem 53Legacy of the Kamikazes 53Legacy of Radar . 54Problems 55Quest for Solutions 57TheThreeTs 57The Guided Missile Frigates 60Too Much Data and Not Enough Information 61Three Digital Attempts 62The Canadian Navy's Digital Automated Tracking and Resolving System 62Early Digital Experiments at the Navy Electronics Laboratory 62The Semi-Automatic Air Intercept Control System 65Trouble with Analogs 66The Royal Navy Comprehensive Display System 66NRL's Electronic Data System 67The Intercept Tracking and Control Console 68Project COSMOS 68Project CORNFIELD 693 The Codebreaking Computers—A Digital Solution 71The Navy Codebreakers 71A Place Named Seesaw 71From Steam to Electrons 73A Machine Named Ice Cream 73The Naval Computing Machine Laboratory 76A Computer Named von Neumann 77ENIAC 77EDVAC 79The Navy Computers 81From Gliders to Codebreaking Machines 81The Moore School Lectures 90WHIRLWIND 92Atlas is Built 92A Hint of Scandal 98UNIVAC Persists 99WHIRLWIND and SAGE 100WHIRLWIND Saved by the Soviets 100Chain Home a Thousand Times Over 102Magnetic Donuts for WHIRLWIND 103SAGE Goes into Production 105SAGE in Operation 106From Tubes to Transistors 107Magnetic Donuts for Atlas II 107The Undercapitalization Syndrome at ERA 108We Can Do it With Transistors 109BOGART 109Enter the Transistor 110SOLO, The All-Transistorized Computer 112MAGSTEC and TRANSTEC 113ATHENA 1134 Conception of a New System 117Project Lamplight—Conception of a New System 117Continental Air Defense Coordination? 117McNally's Mission 118One of Us is Wrong, Mac 118A Good Man to Have on Your Side 121From Concept to Technology—The NTDS Technical and Operational RequirementsDocument 121I Have Just the Man You Need 121Building Blocks for Growth 123A Digital Frankenstein Monster? 124General-Purpose or Special-Purpose Computers? 124Built to Go in Harm's Way 125Marrying the Digital to the Analog 126Drums or Magnetic Cores? 127Automatic Communications 128OPNAVBuysIt 1285 Building a New System 131Who Should Build the System? 131Project Organization 134The NTDS Project Office 134Support from the BUSHIPS Technical Organization 136The Special Applications Branch 137The Radar Branch 139Staffing the Project Office 140An Evolving Modus Operandi 146The Chief of Naval Operations Project Office 148Navy Electronics Laboratory Role 155A Computer With a Dipstick 156Selection of Univac 156Conception of the Unit Computer 159The AN/USQ-17 Prototype Computer 161Turmoil in a Young Industry 164Building the Unit Computers 165Fuzzy Scopes and Elliptical Circles 168Selection of Hughes Aircraft 168Like No Cathode Ray Tubes Ever Seen Before 170More Than Just Displays 171Building Blocks 173Trials and Tribulations of Transistors 173Computers on the Airwaves 177A Link—The Primary Long Range Tactical Data Link 177Selection of Collins Radio 177From Digits to Music 178B Link—For Those Without 181The Interceptor Control Link . 181C Link—The UHF Short Range Tactical Data Link 182Digits in an Analog World 182Developing the Operational Computer Program 183A New Thing Under the Sun 183Who Should Build the Seagoing Operational Computer Programs? 184Real-Programmers Write in Machine Language 185Real-Programmers Do Not Need to Document Their Programs 187Building the Prototype Computer Program 188Programming a Real-Time Computer 188First Steps 189Force Tracking and Data Linking 190TEWA 193Interceptor Control 195The Stores 197A System that Never Sailed 197The Fleet Comes In 2076 No Damned Computer Is Going To Tell Me What To Do 211Getting the Ships 211The Guided Missile Frigates 211Not on Our Ship!—How Oriskany Was Won 212Ready or Not, I Want it on the Nuclear-Powered Ships 213The Billboard Radars 213Long Beach and Enterprise 215Building for Service Test 216The Q-17 Does Not Make It 216The Purple Plague 221The NTDS Interface Specification 228Good Bye to the Cigarette Lighter 229Service Test Communications Subsystems 232Service Test Computer Programs 234New Faces in the Project Office 234Service Test Installation 238No Damned Computer 241Service Test 245Getting Ready for Service Test 245The Navy Meets the Software Monster 249Where Did All Those Tracks Come From? 250If You Don't Have a Sense of Humor, Don't Use Computers 252Hell, It Don't Hardly Ever Fail Sir! 253Saved by Equipment Reliability 255Service Approval 258So What Did They Get for the Money? 259Money Spent 260What Was the End Product? 2637 In the Air, on Land, and Sea 267On the Land as on the Sea—The Marine Tactical Data System 267The Amphibious Force Flagships 272Hawkeye and the Airborne Tactical Data System 274Advent of USN Airborne Early Warning Radar 274Hawkeye 276The E-2A 'Hawkeye' Airborne Early Warning Aircraft 276TheE-2B Hawkeye 281TheE-2C Hawkeye 282Digitizing the Antisubmarine Airplanes 283Other Navies and NTDS 284The Royal Navy and ADA 284New Names for NTDS 2918 New Horizons for Tactical Computers 297First Production 297First-Production Ships 297First-Production NTDS Equipment 298The Watch Changes 302Maybe these Digital Computers are Good for Something After All 305No Kid Named Joe Randolph 315Troubles with the Three Ts 315Seconds are Precious—Weapons Direction System Mark 11 and the AN/SPS-48 Radar 317The Birth of Weapons Direction System Mark 11 317Genesis of the AN/SPS-48 Radar 319No Kid Named Joe Randolph is Going to Tell Me How to Run my Business 322Mare Island, the Testing Ground 324Shoehorning a New System into Wainwright 325Life in Main Navy 327The Anti-Submarine Warfare Ship Command and Control System 330The Requirement 330A Concept for Automating Anti-Submarine Warfare 333New Link 11 Equipment 334A New Display Subsystem 335Analog Leaves Center Stage 337ASWSC&CS Aftermath 338Time to Go Competitive? 339The System Evolves 340Automatic Detection and Tracking 340A Large Screen Display? 3429 Twilight of the Analogs 347In Combat 347Early NTDS and ATDS Deployment in Vietnam 347OnPIRAZ 349The Beacon Video Processor 350The Marine Tactical Data System in Vietnam 352Interceptor Control and Missile Operations 354NTDS Vietnam Summary 355Give Us More Memory! 356The Fleet Goes Digital 357The First Wave 357The Second Wave 358New Computers for New Purposes 358Finally, 32 Bits—The AN/UYK-7 Computer 360Moving on to Digital Weapons Control 361Working Out the Fundamentals 361Digital Talos 362Digital Tartar 364Digital Terrier 365Closing the Loop 365The Guns Go Digital 366A Line of Standards 367Last Decade of the Analogs 367Too Many Computers! 368A Standard Minicomputer 370The Navy Embedded Computer Program 372The Politics of Computers 377Shield of the Fleet 378The Advanced Surface Missile System 378From ASMS to Aegis 384More Boundary Line Adjustments 386Problems of Success 388A New Name 389Do Old Computers Ever Die? 393Summary 394Legacy of NTDS 394Recognition 395How Could They Possibly Have Succeeded? 397A Joint Electronics Equipment Designation System 401B Table of Acronyms and Abbreviations 405C Univac NTDS Organization, December 1,1959 415Bibliography 421Index 441