2. Genealogy of ATC Systems
Eagan ATC History supporting this chart is in a pdf file assembled by Tom Montgomery and his co-workers.
3. ATC Technology Evolution
| Year | Displays | Radars | Tracks | New or Enhanced Capabilities | Sites | Note |
| 1960 | | | | Data Entry, Automation of flight strip printing | | |
| 1965 | 12 | 2 | 100 | ASR Interface, Radar/Beacon Tracking, Flight Data Processing, TRACON Display, TTY Op. interface, Mil Hardware, Assembly language | 2 | |
| 1970 | 15 | 2 | 150 | FAA hardware, ARTCC Interface, Simulation, Nationwide implementation | 64 | |
| 1975 | 20 | 2 | 200 | Lcl tower display, MSAW | 164 | |
| 1980 | 30 | 2 | 600 | ASR/ARSR interface, Radar/Beacon tracking, Remote tower display, Improved recovery, Data recording, Target detection offload, Refresh offload, All-digital | 214 | |
| 1985 | 46 | 4 | 1,000 | Conflict alert, Mosaic | 220+ | |
| 1990 | 61 | 15 | 2,850 | Distributed system monitor, Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) hardware, C language, Distributed display processing, COTS operating system (OS), Local area network, Mode C Intruder, Distributed track processing, Distributed common processing | 220+ | |
| 1995 | 92 | 15 | 6,000 | TRACON Display, Graphic User Interface (GUI), distributed SMC, COTS hardware, ARTCC Interfaces, Lcl tower display, Remote tower display, Improved recovery, COTS operating system, Local area network, CRDA, Final monitor aid, Color raster displays | 220+ | |
| 2000 | 223 | 15 | 10,000 | ASR/ARSR interfaces, Radar/Beacon tracking, TRACON display, COTS hardware, Lcl tower display, Remote tower display, Improved recovery, Data recording, Mosaic, COTS OS, Local area network, Color raster displays, ADS-B Processing, Kalman Filter, Backchannel | 175 | |
| 2005 | 300 | 15/4ADS | 11,400 | ASR/ARSR interface, Radar/Beacon tracking, TRACON Display, GUI Distributed SMC, COTS Hardware, C/Java language, Lcl tower display, Remote tower display, Data recording, Mosiac, COTS OS, Local area network, Final monitor aid, Color raster displays, ADS-B processing, Kalman filter, Wx Radar Processing, Stand-alone towers | 170 | |
| 2010 | | | | | | |
4. ATC System Locations
This June 2005 chart locates the 139 US associated Operational Facilities.
5. ATC System Descriptions, etc.
The photo at the right shows several aircraft on final approach - ATC systems provide the controllers with position information, flight number and aircraft type, recommend aircraft spacing, altitudes, and speeds as they near touchdown. These systems also provide possible collision warnings. [lab]
5.1 Software Information:
Need inputs! 5.2 Hardware Information:
The initial ATC systems depended heavily upon hardware available from the NTDS production lines. For your edification, Tom has assembled a set of ARTS I photos.
5.3 Documents Available to Peruse:
The 1964 File Computer application description. - A 1964 article by Jay Rabb and Al Ridenour.
- A 1967 article by Robert Anderson.
- A 1971 Automated Air Traffic Control re-print by Jack Sater, et al.
- A 1972 Air Traffic Control Experience re-print by R.J. Hansen.
- A 1990 History of Terminal Automation by the ATC staff.
5.4 Links to associated sites: These web sites also provide relevant information:
6.0 ZKSD
From Larry Bolton: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 10:59:41 -0500 - In looking at photos yesterday, I came across a photo of some cards I had not seen before. They are 56 pin. But rather than the more normal nearly square shape, these were elongated - still only 56 pins wide but about 50% taller. I had never seen these before. They are about 1978 vintage.
After asking about and doing some tracking, we determined they might have something to do with a program called ZKSD or a CMA requestor kit. There was also a photo of a frame which would hold these cards. Neither photo had any labeling to indicate what it was.
From Dick Lundgren's European Business Article via Lowell:
"However, in the non-Navy area, the company had some other notable business accomplishments, specifically for the German equivalent of the FAA. In 1976 Sperry Univac-Eagan and Sperry Univac-Germany jointly performed on a contract called ZKSD with the German Air Traffic Control Agency (BFS) to develop a central Flight Data Processing (FDP) system that would distribute and print flight strips at all civilian airports in West Germany. ZKSD stands for Zentraler KontrollStreifenDruck (literally, Central Control Strip Printing, or more descriptively, Central Flight Plan Data Processing and Strip Printing System). BFS is the Bundesanstalt für FlugSicherung (Federal Institute for Flight Safety). The initial architecture utilized multi-IOP computers from the US-FAA programs but as the architecture matured, main frame commercial 1100 series processors were used. Unisys Germany continued to support this system including a major upgrade called UKD into the late 1990s."
From Harvey Taipale:
ZKSD was a one of-a-kind system for Germany, Project Engineer was Ed Temmers. This iteration of the system never worked to the German’s satisfaction, and I believe the program was switched to commercial processors, which did not use the CMA.
ARTS IIIA had a box called the Central Memory Access Unit, which indeed did use elongated 56 pin cards with DIPs on it. CMA was a memory multiplexer, allowing scalable systems of up to 8 IOP’s talk to up to 16 memory modules (all 16K x 32 bits, core, made by Dataproducts). The main ARTS processing system was built from these modules and a box called the Reconfiguration and Fault Detection Unit (RFDU). Any system error would trigger a “scatter” interrupt, suspending ATC processing and driving every unit into a self test mode. All good units would then reconfigure around any failing units and resume ATC processing, all within 10 seconds. CMA was the traffic cop for memory accesses, and unfortunately proved to have noise and multistable priority problems, causing many scatter interrupts and earning the controllers distrust. The unit was redesigned and worked fairly well thereafter, although the multistable problems were never completely eliminated. I recall this vividly, as I had just inherited the ATC hardware project engineer’s role when this problem surfaced.
Original CMA design was done by Merlyn Alexander, working or Pete Tierney on an FAA R&D contract. Redesign was done by a”team” led by Gerry Griffith and Verle Christianson, but the real work was done by Doug Hair and Jerry Thibideau.
From Larry Bolton:
Thanks Harvey. I think you have it.
One of the photos appears to show a 7501375 Requester Data Multiplexer card in three stages. The first appears to be the card as initially released. Apparently there was a problem with one of the signal traces on the card because a second photo shows the same card but with a short piece of coax shielded cable going from one circuit to another. This must have worked because the third photo shows an engineering version of the same card but a ground plane has been added to the top side of the pwb.
You are correct that the circuits on the card are DIPs. I believe the CMA nomenclature is on the photo. The ZKSD term came when we tried to get a used-0n for the part number. Thanks for the assistance. Larry