This mini-fridge is roughly the same size, dimensionally, as the RECOMP II, a computer produced by Autonetics, a division of North American Aviation, in 1958.
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The Autonetics D200 computer was built using MOS LSAs. C. F. O'Donnell. "Engineering for systems using large scale integration". afips, pp.
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R. K. "Bob" Booher, an engineer at Autonetics, invented four-phase logic, and communicated the idea to Frank Wanlass at Fairchild Semiconductor; Wanlass promoted this logic form at General Instrument Microelectronics Division. Booher made the first working four-phase chip, the Autonetics DDA integrator, during February 1966; he later designed several chips for and built the Autonetics D200 airborne computer using this technique. R. K. Booher, "MOS GP Computer," afips, pp.877, 1968 Proceedings of the Fall Joint Computer Conference, 1968 In April 1967, Joel Karp and Elizabeth de Atley published an article "Use four-phase MOS IC logic" in Electronic Design magazine.
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Autonetics D37D digital computer, part of the NS20 Navigation System. The Autonetics Division of Rockwell International produced all three generations of the Minuteman Missile Guidance Set (MGS). The MGS includes the Gyro Stabilized Platform (GSP), Digital Control Unit (DCU), Missile Guidance Set Control (MGSC) and the Amplifier Assembly. The MGS is an inertial guidance system which directs the flight of the missiles.
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Autonetics was the associate contractor for the Minuteman (MM) guidance system, which included the flight and prelaunch software. This software was programmed in assembly language into a D17 disk computer. TRW provided the guidance equations that Autonetics programmed and was also responsible for the verification of the flight software. When MM I became operational, the flight computer was the only digital computer in the system.
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Autonetics began in 1945 at North American's Technical Research Laboratory, a small unit in the Los Angeles Division's engineering department based in Downey, California. The evolution of the Navaho missile program resulted in the establishment of Autonetics as a separate division of North American Aviation in 1955, first located in Downey, later moving to Anaheim, California in 1963. The division was involved in the development of guidance systems for the Minuteman ballistic missile system.
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Autonetics also programmed functional simulators and the code inserter verifier that was used at Wing headquarters to generate and test the flight program codes to go into the airborne computer.
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Autonetics further advanced the state of the art by building the platform in the form of a ball which could rotate in two directions. Conventional solutions used a shaft with ball bearings at either end that allowed it to rotate around a single axis only. Autonetics design meant that only two gyros would be needed for the inertial platform, instead of the typical three. The last major advance was to use a general-purpose digital computer in place of the analog or custom designed digital computers.
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Autonetics originated in North American Aviation's Technical Research Laboratory, a small unit in the Los Angeles Division's engineering department, in 1945. In 1946, the laboratory won an Army Air Forces contract to develop a 175 to 500 mile range glide missile. The work and the lab expanded, and by June 1948, all of the Aerophysics Laboratory was consolidated at Downey, California. The evolution of the Navaho missile program then resulted in the establishment of Autonetics as a separate division of North American Aviation in 1955, first located in Downey, moving to Anaheim, California in 1963.
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The division ultimately produced the Monica family of microcomputers, the D-17B Minuteman I computer, and the D-37B and D-37C Minuteman II computers, in which micro-miniaturization reduced weight by two- thirds. Autonetics also developed and tested flight programs for the D37D Minuteman III computer. The 1966 Autonetics DDA integrator was the first MOS large scale array (LSA) using four-phase logic. After producing the DDA and other MOS-LSA circuits, the team involved decided to design a general purpose computer suitable for navigation (sometimes called the MOS GP computer).
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The Rockwell Autonetics digital bombing-navigation system included inertial navigation system, AN/APQ-130 attack radar system and Doppler radar. It also included digital computer set and multi-function displays (MFDs). The terrain-following radar was the Sperry AN/APQ-128.Logan 1998, pp. 26–27.
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The disk storage was considered hardened to radiation from nearby nuclear explosions, making it an ideal storage medium. To improve computational speed, the D-17 borrowed an instruction look-ahead feature from the Autonetics-built Field Artillery Data Computer (M18 FADAC) that permitted simple instruction execution every word time.
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"Rockwell International ... Building the Space Shuttle: History, Higher, Faster, Farther: 1970-1986". Boeing Corporation, 2012. Retrieved: April 24, 2012. Space Shuttle orbiter Atlantis landing at Kennedy Space Center Rockwell International's defense and space divisions (including the North American Aviation divisions Autonetics and Rocketdyne) were sold to Boeing in December 1996.
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Both systems were developed, built and tested at the Downey (Slauson Avenue), and Anaheim facilities. The Data Systems division developed data-processing systems, general-purpose digital computers, ground support equipment, control systems and telemetry systems. Autonetics built an office computer system (RECOMP), and was responsible for the guidance and control system for the Boeing-built Minuteman missiles.
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DF-224 in the Hubble Space Telescope The DF-224 is a space-qualified computer used in space missions from the 1980s. It was built by Rockwell Autonetics. As with many spacecraft computers, the design is very redundant, since servicing in space is at best difficult and often impossible. The configuration had three CPUs, one active and two spares.
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Program studies continued; IBM and Autonetics were awarded AMSA advanced avionics study contracts in 1968. McNamara remained opposed to the program in favor of upgrading the existing B-52 fleet and adding nearly 300 FB-111s for shorter range roles then being filled by the B-58.Schwartz 1998, p. 119. He again vetoed funding for AMSA aircraft development in 1968.
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This version featured an enlarged nose and radome housing the AN/ASG-19 Thunderstick bombing/navigation system. The AN/ASG-19 was designed around the Autonetics R-14A radar, which operated in both air-to-air and air- to-ground modes, and the AN/APN-131 Doppler navigation radar. In the cockpit, the F-105D featured vertical-tape instrument displays for adverse weather operation.
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Autonetics D-17 guidance computer from a Minuteman I missile The D-17B (D17B) computer was used in the Minuteman I NS-1OQ missile guidance system. The complete guidance system contained a D-17B computer, the associated stable platform, and power supplies. The D-17B weighed approximately , contained 1,521 transistors, 6,282 diodes, 1,116 capacitors, and 504 resistors. These components were mounted on double copper-clad, engraved, gold-plated, glass fiber laminate circuit boards.
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By August 1958, within 8 months of the company's creation, Fairchild was delivering Mesa transistors to IBM. Once it became available, the mesa transistor was desired for a wide variety of military applications. The speed with which it had been developed gave Fairchild a virtual monopoly on the fast-growing market for the next year. The most significant contract came from Autonetics, which was developing the navigation and control computer for the Minuteman ICBM.
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One of the first recognizably modern embedded systems was the Apollo Guidance Computer, developed ca. 1965 by Charles Stark Draper at the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory. At the project's inception, the Apollo guidance computer was considered the riskiest item in the Apollo project as it employed the then newly developed monolithic integrated circuits to reduce the computer's size and weight. An early mass-produced embedded system was the Autonetics D-17 guidance computer for the Minuteman missile, released in 1961.
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Autonetics D-17 guidance computer from a Minuteman-I missile. Previous long-range missiles used liquid fuels that could only be loaded just prior to firing. The loading process took from 30 to 60 minutes in typical designs. Although lengthy, this was not considered to be a problem at the time, because it took about the same amount of time to spin up the inertial guidance system, set the initial position, and program in the target coordinates.
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The Minuteman-I Autonetics D-17 flight computer used a rotating air bearing magnetic disk holding 2,560 "cold-stored" words in 20 tracks (write heads disabled after program fill) of 24 bits each and one alterable track of 128 words. The time for a D-17 disk revolution was 10 ms. The D-17 also used a number of short loops for faster access to intermediate results storage. The D-17 computational minor cycle was three disk revolutions or 30 ms.
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Minuteman was designed from the outset to be launched in minutes. While solid fuel eliminated the fueling delays, the delays in starting and aligning the guidance system remained. For the quick launch, the guidance system would have to be kept running and aligned at all times, which was a serious problem for the mechanical systems, especially the gyroscopes which used ball bearings. Autonetics had an experimental design using air bearings that they claimed had been running continually from 1952 to 1957.
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In 1963, Harold M. Manasevit was the first to document epitaxial growth of silicon on sapphire while working at the Autonetics division of North American Aviation (now Boeing). In 1964, he published his findings with colleague William Simpson in the Journal of Applied Physics. In 1965, C.W. Mueller and P.H. Robinson at RCA Laboratories fabricated a MOSFET (metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor) using the silicon-on-sapphire process. SOS was first used in aerospace and military applications because of its inherent resistance to radiation.
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Dorothy disappeared and Sally was imprisoned in a concentration camp, where she took on a leadership role. Months later, she and her servants were rescued by Imperial forces. The niece of an Imperial senator, she is sent home aboard MacArthur, then recruited for the expedition to the Mote based on her skills. ; His Excellency Horace Hussein Chamoun al Shamlan Bury : An Imperial magnate, Chairman of the Board of Imperial Autonetics, and a leading member of the Imperial Traders Association, Bury instigates the rebellion on New Chicago.
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The type featured a strengthened fuselage, wing, and empennage structures; the larger vertical fin with fully powered rudder as used on the two-seat versions; fully powered brakes, a new anti-skid system, and larger tires; revised flaps for improved combat maneuvering; and a larger braking chute. Upgraded avionics included the Autonetics NASARR F15A-41B radar with air-to-air, ground-mapping, contour-mapping, and terrain-avoidance modes, as well as the Litton LN-3 inertial navigation system (the first on a production fighter).Upton 2003, pp. 32–33.Pace 1992, p. 81.
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Autonetics included the Navigation Systems division, designing and producing inertial and stellar- inertial navigation systems for ships, submarines, missiles, aircraft and space vehicles. One of the automatic navigation systems produced by the division was the N-6 or NAVAN (North American Vehicle Auto Navigation) for the Navaho missile system. Other products included alignment devices and attitude reference systems for missile launchers, artillery, land survey, aircraft and missile-range ships. The Electro Sensor Systems division built multi-function radar systems, armament control computers, data and information display systems for high performance aircraft, and sensor equipment.
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Over the period of the flight the drift would be so low that any inaccuracies in the platform would account for a maximum of 1% of the warhead's final accuracy–the rest would be due to issues like the timing of the firing of the rocket engines, minor differences in warhead construction, and unavoidable randomness in the atmosphere."Advanced Inertial Reference Sphere", FAS, 22 October 1997 The Air Force also contracted with Autonetics for a backup design using mechanical gimbals, the "Advanced Stable Platform" (ASP). In May 1975 the first hand-built AIRS was transferred from Draper's laboratory to Northrop for further development.
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It was during this period that he became fascinated by the then-new programmable digital computer. Nelson worked towards a Ph.D. until 1959, but the combination of his GI Bill educational benefits running out, needing to support a wife and three children, and the mathematics department rejecting his proposal to do his thesis on computers convinced him to leave the university without completing his Ph.D., and to get a job. Initially, Nelson worked for Autonetics, an aerospace company in southern California. In 1960 he went to work for the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory (later renamed Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory or LLNL), in Livermore, California.
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In order to store multiple programs, the computer, the D-17B, was built in the form of a drum machine but used a hard disk in place of the drum. Building a computer with the required performance, size and weight demanded the use of transistors, which were at that time very expensive and not very reliable. Earlier efforts to use transistorized computers for guidance, BINAC and the system on the SM-64 Navaho, had failed and were abandoned. The Air Force and Autonetics spent millions on a program to improve transistor and component reliability 100 times, leading to the "Minuteman high-rel parts" specifications.
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At those levels, the ICBM begins to approach the manned bomber in terms of accuracy; a small upgrade, roughly doubling the accuracy of the INS, would give it the same CEP as the manned bomber. Autonetics began such development even before the original Minuteman entered fleet service, and the Minuteman-II had a CEP of . Additionally, the computers were upgraded with more memory, allowing them to store information for eight targets, which the missile crews could select among almost instantly, greatly increasing their flexibility. From that point, Minuteman became the US's primary deterrent weapon, until its performance was matched by the Navy's Trident missile of the 1980s.
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The Autonetics Division of North American Aviation had previously been faced with the task of developing a guidance system for the U.S. Air Force Navaho known as the XN6 Autonavigator. The XN6 was a system designed for air-breathing Cruise missiles, but by 1958 had proved useful for installment on submarines. A predecessor to the GPS satellite navigation system, the Transit system (later called NAVSAT), was developed because the submarines needed to know their position at launch in order for the missiles to hit their targets. Two American physicists, William Guier and George Weiffenbach, at Johns Hopkins's Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), began this work in 1958.
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David L. Fried was born in Brooklyn, New York, on April 13, 1933. He received the AB, MS, and PhD degrees in physics from Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, in 1957, 1959, and 1962, respectively. From 1957 to 1959 he was with RCA Astro- Electronics Division, Princeton, N. J., where he worked on computer applications analysis. In 1961 he was employed by Rockwell International, where he held the position of Manager in the Electro-Optical Laboratory of the Autonetics Division (Anaheim, Calif.), where, as head of the Laser Techniques Group, he was engaged in the study of devices necessary for laser applications, and in the analysis of system concepts for laser application.
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DF-224 in Hubble, before it was replaced in 1999 The two initial, primary computers on the HST were the 1.25 MHz DF-224 system, built by Rockwell Autonetics, which contained three redundant CPUs, and two redundant NSSC-1 (NASA Standard Spacecraft Computer, Model1) systems, developed by Westinghouse and GSFC using diode–transistor logic (DTL). A co-processor for the DF-224 was added during Servicing Mission1 in 1993, which consisted of two redundant strings of an Intel-based 80386 processor with an 80387 math co-processor. The DF-224 and its 386 co-processor were replaced by a 25 MHz Intel-based 80486 processor system during Servicing Mission 3A in 1999. The new computer is 20 times faster, with six times more memory, than the DF-224 it replaced.
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The Litton LN-3 was one of the first inertial navigators on a production aircraft, but other systems, either inertial navigators or inertial measurement units, of other brands and for various applications with comparable technology existed. The Autonetics Radar Enhanced Inertial Navigation System (REINS) of the North American A-5 Vigilante was more or less comparable to the LN-3/PHI-4. This system was derived from the XN-6 system developed for the SM-64 Navaho, the N5G system for the AGM-28 Hound Dog and the N2C/N2J/N3A/N3B system for the XB-70, and was related to the N6A-1 navigation system used in the USS Nautilus (SSN-571) and the N10 inertial guidance system for the LGM-30 Minuteman. Note that the Boeing history claims the REINS to be the first inertial navigation in a production airplane.
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In response to a 1957 German Air Staff Paper asking for a single aircraft to fulfill its fighter, fighter-bomber, and reconnaissance mission requirements,Kropf 2002, p. 16. Lockheed redesigned the entire airframe, including 96 new forgings, additional skin panels, and reinforced landing gear with larger tires and improved brakes. The proposed F-104G (for Germany) "Super Starfighter" featured a more powerful J79-11A engine, a larger tail with powered rudder (the same used on the two-seat F-104B and D), improved blown flaps with a mode for improved maneuverability, electric de-icing equipment for the air intake inlets, and a larger drag chute. Avionics were improved as well, primarily with the Autonetics F15A NASARR (North American Search and Range Radar) multi-mode radar and the LN-3 inertial navigation system by Litton Industries, the first such system to be placed into operational service.
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It was not a direct source of range information. Telemetry data was recorded on Magnetic tape at 7.5, 15, 30 and 60 ips from Nems Clark 1432 receiver. The acquisition director, which comprised the RADAP-C Computer together with associated input and output devices, served as an acquisition aid, as means for checkout and calibration of associated electronic equipment, and, in the TRANSIT mode, as an aid to the navigation of the DAMP ship. The Transit system of navigation consisted of the Transit satellite, a worldwide network of tracking stations to observe and determine the orbital elements of the satellite, and suitable receivers and Autonetics Recomp computers aboard the navigating vessel to receive the stable frequency radio signals broadcast by the satellite, to observe the Doppler frequency shift, and from this information, plus the approximate location of the vessel, compute to within one mile (1.6 km) the exact location of the vessel.
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