#Navy Technology

[zadokthepriest]

via Kane

[univac1219]

1962 Mainframe with Bluetooth

This old computer is comprised of four big boxes, three of which are ever actually used.

The UNIVAC 1219. This is the brains of the system. It controls the operations of every other device. This is what I'm referring to when I'm not gesturing to the UNIVAC 1219 as a whole.

The UNIVAC 1540. This is the DDR, or Digital Data Recorder. It holds, writes, and reads the magnetic tape operators load into the machine.

The Digital to Analog Converter. The UNIVAC 1219 was the first digital computer on most U.S. Navy ships, most of which had analog weapons systems. This hulking mass of steel translated the digital signals from the computer to the analog signals of the weapon systems and vice versa in regards to the radar.

The UNIVAC 1532. The I/O console managed the...you guessed it, input and output of the UNIVAC 1219. You can load and punch paper tape for programs more bite-sized than would be used for magnetic tape.

In addition, we have two teletype machines. You can think of them like typewriters that don't receive human input (except the one that can if we want), but instead output what the computer tells it to.  We have a Teletype Corporation teletype that is optimized for character compatability and a Kleinschmidt teletype that is optimized for speed. Both rely on the I/O console to send and receive data.

The real ingenuity begins with the floppy drive. Duane, who's career revolved around this system, developed a way for a floppy drive to imitate the I/O console. The computer thinks it is reading and writing to a paper tape, when it is in fact reading and writing to a 5.25in floppy inside an ancient CNC machine floppy drive.

And this, dear reader, is where the magic happens. This framework was originally built for interfacing with the 1219 via BIN files over Serial port and was easily changed to support BIN files over floppy. Duane has been working on an off adapting our purple converter box with a raspi to let the 1219 read and write BIN files over Bluetooth.

Make no mistake, you cannot simply SSH into this machine as tons of setup and channel changes must be performed to ready it to receive and send data. That being said, I don't see any other UNIVAC mainframes with Bluetooth [or any other running UNIVAC 1219s at all :(], so I will take what I can get.

Can someone tell me how to Tumblr properly?

[swag-ness]

Man i wanna study everything and nothing at the same time like god gimme the strength of chosing a career path ffs

There is psychology and then there is navy and im already a diploma deep into the education field also i wanna be a tech genie and a creative af person somebody kill the perfectionist inside me so that ill stop expecting to build a career in every hobby of mine from myself without exploring anything 😀

[158590]

[aeraras]

[tomrawlingplanetearthtimetravel]

[its-stimsca]

if you don't mind, make like a fishmonger by underscores board. i kinda wanna see what you would think it's like ¯⁠\⁠(⁠◉⁠‿⁠◉⁠)⁠/⁠¯ guess put some fish and new jersey kinda stuff in there, i also definitely want the longport water tower in the middle

thanks!

The Fish Song now has the honor of being the 600th song on my master playlist

👥 🌧️ 👥 / 🌧️ 👥 🌧️ / 👥 🌧️ 👥

[navy-leader]

Anybody wanna hear my victim headcanons

[zadokthepriest]

via Kane

[univac1219]

Does your 1219 have a nickname?

Also, I was wondering if you have any fun stories surrounding it! Strange quirks it has or anything like that.

I'd love to see more photos if you're allowed to post them!

Thanks for the question! These are my favorite part about my blog by far.

Not exactly, the UNIVAC 1219 doesn’t have a nickname. I did realize recently that I should specify the pronunciation (Twelve-Nineteen), but it doesn’t have any nicknames. Apart from ‘the 1219’, it’s also regularly referred to as the CPU or just ‘the computer’.

Fun stories or weird quirks? Boy, I could fill a book with this machine’s weird quirks (or as we say, intermittent issues), but I’ll try to blitz through the most common ones:

Sometimes the computer will stop running and enter a WAIT mode. No reason, it just needs a break. We can’t fix it, it just has to decide to go back into operating mode.

The computer will often start attempting to communicate on IO channel 13. We’re not telling it to talk to anything, it just decides to try to.

One of our teletypes (the Kleinshmidt) stamps ink splotches into the paper rather than characters most of the time. However, this weekend it worked for the first time in 10 months! We didn’t change anything, it just had an extra cup of coffee or something.

The Digital Data Recorder, or the tape drive, has the most gremlins out of any of our units. The top handler works fairly well, but the bottom handler won’t properly read data, write data, move the tape forward, initialize the tape, or any number of other issues.

There’s more but hopefully this satisfies your curiosity.

Fun stories? Well, I can’t name any specific ones, but I can say it’s a very endearing machine. It’s the very last of its kind and being one of three individuals in the world responsible for it makes every issue that more frustrating. There is no real forum for it, the subject matter experts sit next to me and are often just as exasperated as I am.

But the unique nature of this situation make every successful diagnostic test that much sweeter. Every new addition (5.25” floppy drive via serial) that much cooler. I have an IBM PC-XT clone at home, but I thank my lucky stars every day that this big iron is what I get to specialize in.

As for more photos, I have none that are as grandiose as you would probably expect. I do have my working photos though. I took all my photos when I first started working on it and now I am more dedicated to fixes than photo-ops.

This is a photo of our finicky Kleinshmidt teletype. Still has blotches but it actually printed!

This is the back of the bottom handler. Pictured is the vacuum pump in the bottom left (so sudden stops just yank magnetic tape slack rather than ripping tape). The big cylinder in the center is a motor for running the magnetic tape handler itself. The big black ‘hose’ of wires coming out of the steel plate contains all the cables that come right off the handler’s head for reading and writing data!

This is the forward pinch roller of the bottom handler. It was replaced after this photo was taken as you can see the rubber has deteriorated in the 55 years this machine has been operating.

As for being allowed to post photos, that’s not an issue. The last 1219 was decommissioned in 2014 and now you can find all of its documentation online at http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/univac/military/1219/

[stone-cold-groove]

Front cover: UNIVAC Defense System’s CP-890 shipboard computer brochure - 1967.

[science70]

Indian Navy aircraft carrier INS Vikrant, 1971.

[tianalaurence1]

Princess Royal and Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence

[ceiling-karasu]

Iron Crow and Laser Weapons

I'm just straight up going to be out here making up the schematics and blueprints of the Iron Crow planes for this chapter, so I can extrapolate later, huh?

I know nothing about planes, but here I am reading manuals and blueprints since these planes will probably feature heavily throughout The Rod That Blocks the Lightning. After all, a good portion of the plot of S2 was Geumseagi trying to find out what they were, and how they could be used against Flower Hill.

Especially since laser based weapons are apparently in development already? Like the HELIOS 60-plus-K-Class laser used by the USS Preble, used to blind optics and supposedly can destroy small targets.

I think it is a similar version of the AN/SEQ-3 Laser Weapon System or XN-1 LaWS already in use by the US Navy to take down small targets.

(USS Ponce). Tumblr won't let me upload the video I have of it in action.

So, obviously, I now have to research these far more in depth, in order to figure out how the Iron Crows can take out entire tank units like they do.

Actually, the beam is comparable to what we have now, it just seems to have a wider effect. I could see the Wolf Unit coming up with something like this, since they are supposed to be based on the US from what I understand, and these types of lasers have been researched since the 1930s. So why does Dr. Huinjogjebi have this type of technology in S1, if not for espionage and such? There must be a reason why the Wolf Unit hates the Weasel Unit.

The shape of the lasers is comparable to real life. I can see how the weight is distributed for the most part, so the shape of the plane should be sound.

Although, they mostly seem to need something much more larger, like one of those large Navy Boats, to provide a stable base and energy support. The ships they are attached to don't seem to be using nuclear energy or anything like that. In fact, it appears to be good for ground attacks and boats anyway, since it can burn through aircraft wiring surprisingly easily.

Anyway, things to get you on an FBI watch-list part 8.