2. USMC NALCOMIS (Logistics) Demonstration and TPQ-27 Pentagon Marketing Visit 1974 Customer testimonials
John Markfelder had us working on a TPQ-27 program that was trying to wrest away from RCA (the follow on). RCA had finished an initial contract for $13M and had not even delivered the source code. John had Ole assemble a Tiger Team to analyze the TPQ-27 situation. This one month study included a powerful team: "Rip Anderson, Tom McSherry, Chuck Lutes, Gus Tallman, and Ole". Ole is at Dan Massoratti's Cottage Grove home preparing the final TPQ-27 report full of "zingers". John's plan is to drop the report into in baskets in the Pentagon. The phone rings, it's Markfelder calling from Washington. "The two boxes of computer equipment arrived OK, but the box containing all the cables is missing. Ole: "John, you should not have signed up if you can not take a joke", (He never did say that to Ole again). You could hear John's response all over the house. After Dan got John settled down, Ole talked to John: "Have you called Floyd Pnewski and Jerry Green?" Who do you suppose that I called just before I called you? They are at Plant 8 doing whatever is necessary to assemble cable pieces for you to bring to Washington DC this afternoon. I went to Plant 8, and ran right into Floyd. Floyd said: "I knew that it was bad luck when I saw you yesterday". I had told Floyd: "How can a major Demo take place without your involvement?" You know how it is, time moves on, you get helpers who take care of things for you. Three packing boxes full of cable PARTS were assembled for Ole to take to the airport. Unfortunately, at this point in Ole's career he did not have a company charge card, a full bank account, nor a personal credit card that would cover the cost of transporting these three boxes to DC on that plane. Ole shows up early at the departure gate, and in the course of the conversation with the young lady says: "I will bet that you are Norwegian". I am. How did you know? "Norwegians are so friendly and helpful. If I don't get these three boxes to DC today I will lose my job. "Take one into the aircraft, go right to back and try to put it under the seat, even though it will not fit. The Flight attendants will be there". I followed her advice. When the box would not fit under the seat, the flight attendants said: "We are not going to be full today, just strap it into the seat". Coming in with the second box I said: "There is only one more". When I came in with the third box I said: "There is only one more and here it is". I had 4 seats that day for the price of one. The crew that made it work that day in DC were John Westergren and Doug Hair. The Demo was a great success.
The night before going to the Pentagon, Rip and Ole were looking out the third story hotel window, when Markfelder and Windland were coming in. Rip said: "Put these beer cans on the ledge, and we will push them off when their feet hit the curb." It sounded just like guns firing. They looked up and Markfelder came right up. Rip said watch this: Tom McSherry's paper written by an expert geometrician, was several pages long. Ole has a college degree in Mathematics, and he could understand only the first two paragraphs. Rip to John: "This paper is critical to our marketing effort tomorrow, and it should be explained by Marketing". John just threw it back, saying that he would never understand it. 1/2 Hour later John said: "We have a rookie marketer" and called Windland to come down. Rip gave his intro. Windland was on page 8 before he realized that it was a joke.
RIP Anderson and Ole went with John Markfelder and Parker Follsom to the Pentagon to talk about TPQ-27. We knew that this was important when that grand old gentlemen, Parker Follsom, got lost leading the way. After the meetings, John said to Ole and Rip that you both talked slow enough today that I could almost understand you.
3. Marine Tactical Data Systems (MTDS) by John Westergren
MTDS development integrated the Naval Tactical Data System with the shore based Marine operations.
4. Marine Air Traffic Control And Landing System
We also developed for the Marine Corps the Marine Air Traffic Control and Landing System (MATCALS) as a tactical air traffic control system that could provide arrival and departure control of aircraft within a 60-nautical-mile radius of the airfield. The system is portable and can be moved and erected at an existing airfield, or used with an expeditionary setup. The relationship of MATCALS to our Air Traffic Control business is another example of applying technologies and equipment to multiple problems of a similar nature. [lab]
5. TERPES by Cal Webster - system user & maintainer
I worked on these computers from about August of 1984 until they were phased out many years later as part of what was then known as the "Tactical Electronic Reconnaissance Processing and Evaluation System" or "TERPES". As I recall, we were the only USMC unit using them. My primary instructor at MCB 29-Palms, CA told us we'd never see one.
When I arrived they were disassembling the old punch card machines and readers and replacing them with paper-tape punch/readers. I'll have to dig back in my old stuff to get more detailed info. They seemed to break-down a lot but were very simple to isolate malfunctions and replace the single-card flip-flops or addressing logic.
These second cousins to the ENIAC were essential to the real-world peacetime reconnaissance missions in which the Marine Corps participated during the "Cold War". During deployment aboard one of our carriers the TERPES electronic/signals intelligence analysts were instrumental in pinpointing at least one "missing" non-ally submarine that surfaced briefly during a routine recon mission. Because the sub only emitted a short burst of radar pulses, the contact was undetectable to the Electronic Counter-Measure Officers who rely mainly on audible tones and alarm lists. Only after carefully analyzing the reconnaissance data brought back by the aircraft was the detection made and verified. During operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, VMAQ-2 (and TERPES) were singled out by the SecNav for the vital role they played in detecting radar emitters and clearing paths for coalition forces to more safely ingress and egress to and from their targets.
P.S. I still have a faulty core memory NDRO module that I saved as memorabilia of those times.
VIP Page 65 updated 20 January, 2010