Organizing and programming a shipboard real-time computer system

Abstract

In recent years, Naval warfare has been altered radically with the introduction of new, ultra-complex, and tremendously effective combat weapons and associated support systems. A requirement of nearly all of these systems is the capability to process information. A variety of computing systems have evolved to meet this requirement. Initially the computers were special purpose; that is, designed to solve the data processing problem associated with a specific and, by today's standards, simple system. As the capability of weapons and support systems has grown, the data processing requirements have also increased in scope and complexity, providing an ever-increasing challenge to the computer industry. The trend has been to satisfy these requirements by designing larger, integrated systems around general purpose, stored-program digital computers. This approach has eliminated many of the problems encountered with the use of small special-purpose systems but has created another type of problem---the programming of the general purpose computers. This paper will discuss some aspects of this programming problem, using the Naval Tactical Data System development as a prime example.