The System Architecture Evaluation Facility-An emulation facility at Rome Air Development Center

Military requirements for data processing systems with unusual characteristics to perform specialized jobs have led to research into advanced architectures by the Department of Defense (DoD). Some of the requirements for systems have no counterpart in the civilian industry. Command, control and communications systems are typically complex and must be reliable and available with a high degree of certainty. This places great stress on the development of new data processing systems. The architecture, as the bedrock of all systems, must be continually improved in order to accomplish the increasingly complex software functions now demanded. Spaceborne automated systems simply cannot have an onboard team of vendor maintenance engineers to diagnose problems and replace components; a fault tolerant architecture is needed. Advanced radar surveillance systems provide a tremendous potential for information gathering but must be supported by parallel architectures which are still in the research phase. The DoD is actively involved in research and development of advanced architectures for tomorrow’s data processing needs and the System Architecture Evaluation Facility (SAEF) is an example of the use of microprogrammable (and other special purpose) computers to reduce the cost and improve the efficiency of this research.