It was actually my second overseas tour for the Air Force, and Personal Computers (PCs) nor Apple Computers did not yet exist. I was stationed at San Vito dei Normanni Air Station, Italy, 7275th Support Group. The Day after meeting my sponsor, and getting settled in the local Minerva Hotel room, he picked me up to go to base, to start my in processing, and to introduce be to my work place and surroundings. By the way I just checked out Google Maps for the SAn Vito Area and the Minerva Hotel we stayed in looked nothing like what is there now.
There was no Flight Line just a HUGE circular antenna, which was nicknamed the Elephant Cage. It was a quiet pleasant little base on the heel of the boot in a very agrarian and rural Italy, located 7 mi /10 km NNW of Brindisi, Apulia, between the port of Brindisi and the town of San Vito dei Normanni, Italy (reference below). Brindisi’s place in World History is that is where the crusaders would leave from in those long past days gone by.
I was told that there was no mainframe, and that I would be working shift work on a DCT 2000. UNIVAC DCT-2000, DCT (Data Communications Terminal), was located in a room in the middle of our little Base Supply Building on the opposite side of the base from the Elephant cage.
The DCT 2000 consisted of a control unit, bar printer, card reader/punch data transmission (card and/or paper tape) device, and communication interface over switched telephone network. We were networked with a Computer in Aviano AFB, Italy.
The Control Unit took care of the receiving and transmitting of data within the DCT 2000. It basically consisted of a buffer storage, control logic and the paths for the data to follow. There were optional control unit possibilities for working with the data. One was in USASCII Control Unit which used USASCII code, 8-bits of which seven bits were used for alphabetics, numerics and special characters and transmission control characters with the 8th bit used for odd parity. The other was Data Line Terminal or DLT Compatible Control Unit it was required for communication between the DCT 200 and a UNIVAC 1004. The major difference all transmission control, message control and data characters were in XS-3 code, a 6 bit internal machine code for communication with the UNIVAC 1004. I do not know which was used for San Vito DCT 2000, as I do not know if Aviano had a UNIVAC 1004 or not.
Here is a list of Parameters – Specifications provided by bitsavers trailing edge (references below).
• Control Unit Characteristics Control unit technical characteristics and special features are summarized in the following list. PARAMETERS – SPECIFICATIONS Transmission Method – Block by block
Transmission Mode – Half duplex; 2 or 4 wire (non- simultaneous; two-way transmission) Transmission Facilities – Voice Grade Telephone Toll Exchange or Private Line Transmission Rate – 2.4 KC (Private Line); 2 KC (Switched Telephone Network) Transmission Code – USASCII, XS-3 (DLT Compatible) Buffer Storage – 256 Character Capacity, Two 128-Character Core Memory Buffers Translation Capabilities – Card Code/Transmission Code Hollerith/USASC II Hollerith/XS-3 (DLT Compatible) SPECIAL FEATURES Error Detection and Retransmission*
Telephone Alert Select Character Capability Short Block Capability* Peripheral Input/Output Channel
Unattended Operation
*With the DLT Compatible Control Unit, Error Detection and Retransmission, and Short Block Capability are included as standard equipment.
The DCT 2000 was fun and interesting and was not that difficult to work with although there were times when one had to rework the punched paper tape by taping and re-punching the holes.
Within the year of my arrival we had transitioned to the UNIVAC 1050-II and it was like coming home sweet.
References :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Vito_dei_Normanni_Air_Station
http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/univac/494/UP-4032r2_Univac494sys_1969.pdf
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The Poppadillo Blog, is the blog page for the Texas Tortilla Factory website, and its stories have been written by Mike Vauthier, and Administratively Approved Authors.
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