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  • Cape Canaveral Air Force Station

    From Jay Morris@21:1/5 to All on Sat Apr 5 21:57:39 2025
    Now Space Force Station of course.

    If anyone is still reading here, a question. Scanning the newsgroup it
    seems that at least a couple people had experience with the Central
    Computer Complex at CCAFS. I worked in Range Control with the Datapoint Scheduling system and then as system manager in the Range Operations
    Control Center so had little but occasional interaction with the CCC and
    the CDC systems. God only knows why but today I was trying to remember
    what the CDC system and peripherals were. Google didn't pop up anything
    I recognized. Anybody remember?

    (And just FYI for someone that had asked, the Pan Am folks were picked
    up by CSR, a joint Computer Sciences/Raytheon venture, who won the
    contract much to the surprise of everyone including the CSR team. The
    belief was that the AF thought Pan Am was getting the attitude that you
    blue guys come and go but we run the range.

    And Sam Major went to CSR. I left in 1995 and he was still there playing
    system manager.

    No, I don't remember for sure why he got banned from the CCC but it
    might have been when he (inadvertently) caused a launch scrub.)

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Scott Dorsey@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Sun Apr 6 07:28:02 2025
    Jay Morris <[email protected]> wrote:
    If anyone is still reading here, a question. Scanning the newsgroup it
    seems that at least a couple people had experience with the Central
    Computer Complex at CCAFS. I worked in Range Control with the Datapoint >Scheduling system and then as system manager in the Range Operations
    Control Center so had little but occasional interaction with the CCC and
    the CDC systems. God only knows why but today I was trying to remember
    what the CDC system and peripherals were. Google didn't pop up anything
    I recognized. Anybody remember?

    I know they were running NOS on CDC Cyber 170 systems with the 60-bit architecture, just like we were doing up at Langley, because we shared
    some resources. I don't know any details beyond that.

    I do know that some of the 170 sites upgraded to 180 machines running in compatibility mode for performance but I don't know any of the details.
    Langley kept running 170s until the death of CSC in the mid-1990s.
    --scott


    "The Cyber is like a time machine that only goes backwards."
    -- gus baird, 1986

    --
    "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jay Morris@21:1/5 to Scott Dorsey on Sun Apr 6 18:18:34 2025
    On 4/6/2025 6:28 AM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
    Jay Morris <[email protected]> wrote:
    If anyone is still reading here, a question. Scanning the newsgroup it
    seems that at least a couple people had experience with the Central
    Computer Complex at CCAFS. I worked in Range Control with the Datapoint
    Scheduling system and then as system manager in the Range Operations
    Control Center so had little but occasional interaction with the CCC and
    the CDC systems. God only knows why but today I was trying to remember
    what the CDC system and peripherals were. Google didn't pop up anything
    I recognized. Anybody remember?

    I know they were running NOS on CDC Cyber 170 systems with the 60-bit architecture, just like we were doing up at Langley, because we shared
    some resources. I don't know any details beyond that.

    I do know that some of the 170 sites upgraded to 180 machines running in compatibility mode for performance but I don't know any of the details. Langley kept running 170s until the death of CSC in the mid-1990s.
    --scott


    "The Cyber is like a time machine that only goes backwards."
    -- gus baird, 1986


    Thanks Scott. (Amazing how r.a.sf.* people pop up everywhere.)

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Scott Dorsey@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Mon Apr 7 08:54:48 2025
    Jay Morris <[email protected]> wrote:
    On 4/6/2025 6:28 AM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
    Jay Morris <[email protected]> wrote:
    If anyone is still reading here, a question. Scanning the newsgroup it
    seems that at least a couple people had experience with the Central
    Computer Complex at CCAFS. I worked in Range Control with the Datapoint >>> Scheduling system and then as system manager in the Range Operations
    Control Center so had little but occasional interaction with the CCC and >>> the CDC systems. God only knows why but today I was trying to remember
    what the CDC system and peripherals were. Google didn't pop up anything
    I recognized. Anybody remember?

    I know they were running NOS on CDC Cyber 170 systems with the 60-bit
    architecture, just like we were doing up at Langley, because we shared
    some resources. I don't know any details beyond that.

    I do know that some of the 170 sites upgraded to 180 machines running in
    compatibility mode for performance but I don't know any of the details.
    Langley kept running 170s until the death of CSC in the mid-1990s.
    --scott


    "The Cyber is like a time machine that only goes backwards."
    -- gus baird, 1986


    Thanks Scott. (Amazing how r.a.sf.* people pop up everywhere.)

    Not that I was very helpful. Although I just boxed up a whole bunch of
    COMPASS manuals to send to the computer history museum. (And at Langley
    we loved CDC so much that we bought the 64-bit STAR-100 which never really lived up to what CDC promised.... all of those manuals got shipped off to the CHM also...) We did a lot better with the Star than Ames did with the ETA-10 though.
    --scott

    --
    "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)