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Decades Later, a Cold War Secret Is Revealed
AP via FoxNews ^ | December 25, 2011 | Helen O'Neill

Posted on 12/26/2011 5:30:15 AM PST by Daffynition

DANBURY, Conn. – For more than a decade they toiled in the strange, boxy-looking building on the hill above the municipal airport, the building with no windows (except in the cafeteria), the building filled with secrets.

They wore protective white jumpsuits, and had to walk through air-shower chambers before entering the sanitized "cleanroom" where the equipment was stored.

They spoke in code.

(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...


TOPICS: History; Military/Veterans; Science
KEYWORDS: godsgravesglyphs
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To: SES1066

Whats her name Carly Fiorina destroyed HP.
They used to lead the world in scientific measurement.
Now its Agilent, and some of its good and some of it sucks.


41 posted on 12/26/2011 8:37:10 AM PST by mylife (The Roar Of The Masses Could Be Farts)
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We are now in a new world of development, using Software defined defined instruments. Matlab and Labview.


42 posted on 12/26/2011 8:41:57 AM PST by mylife (The Roar Of The Masses Could Be Farts)
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We are now in a new world of development, using Software defined instruments. Matlab and Labview.


43 posted on 12/26/2011 8:42:17 AM PST by mylife (The Roar Of The Masses Could Be Farts)
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To: shove_it
When I took Freshman Chemistry, it was the first year they replaced slide rules with calculators. I bought one of these awesome state-of-the-art beauties at an office supply house. It was used, and therefore only half price at $40.00.

Two years later I could have gotten a wristwatch calculator at the swap meet for five bucks.


44 posted on 12/26/2011 9:05:23 AM PST by Jeff Chandler (Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati)
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To: mylife; Daffynition
And before the Friden mechanical calculator, came the Comptomoter ...

... rows & rows of women operating this marvel of efficiency, with both hands. Now, dem wuz da good ole days!

45 posted on 12/26/2011 9:26:10 AM PST by shove_it (just undo it)
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To: shove_it

Ooops, make that comptometer.


46 posted on 12/26/2011 9:30:23 AM PST by shove_it (just undo it)
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To: Daffynition

They still make thingsin CT still, but the liberals and unions are making it hard. Royal and Underwood used to make typewriters in Hartford, Columbia bicycles were made in Hartford, there a few auto companies (Charter Oak, Locomobile, Pope Hartford) in CT and guns.


47 posted on 12/26/2011 9:33:56 AM PST by ExCTCitizen (If we stay home in November '12... Don't complain if 0 shreds the constitution!!!)
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To: IronJack
In 1974, in high school, I had a nice TI CALCULATOR. It was nice and I had it until 2003, when I lost it. The TI had LCD in it.

My dad was a computer engineerand Ihave a picture of him next to a 50's computer, my dad said today's watches are more powerful than that computer.

48 posted on 12/26/2011 9:58:21 AM PST by ExCTCitizen (If we stay home in November '12... Don't complain if 0 shreds the constitution!!!)
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To: shove_it

A room full of computers, as they were called back then.

Not the machines, the people.


49 posted on 12/26/2011 11:42:12 AM PST by Erasmus (Rage, rage, against the dying of the light. Or, get out your 50mm/1.2.)
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To: ExCTCitizen
My dad was a computer engineerand Ihave a picture of him next to a 50's computer, my dad said today's watches are more powerful than that computer.

It'd be great to see that photo.

I first got my mitz on a computer (an IBM 1620) briefly at my college in early 1963. It took about another decade for me to get fully immersed in computer software and eventually architecture.

50 posted on 12/26/2011 11:50:52 AM PST by Erasmus (Rage, rage, against the dying of the light. Or, get out your 50mm/1.2.)
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To: SES1066

I have an HP35s, which is pretty good, except for the PITA entry of digits A-F in hex mode.


51 posted on 12/26/2011 11:53:24 AM PST by Erasmus (Rage, rage, against the dying of the light. Or, get out your 50mm/1.2.)
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To: Daffynition

The eyes in the sky never blink.


52 posted on 12/26/2011 5:53:50 PM PST by Lancey Howard
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To: trebb

I was at San Vito Air Station too, 62-63. It was the 6917th RGM (USAFSS) then. We had the locals convinced that the FLR-9 was used to refuel submarines.


53 posted on 12/26/2011 5:57:50 PM PST by Ax
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To: Erasmus

When I worked FDC for 105 and 155 gun lines in the Marines in the early ‘80s, I was the guy who handled the horizontal chart and my buddy Ron was the “computer”. He was fast with the books. It wasn’t long after that time that the Marines went to a Texas Instruments calculator with a special template the fit over the top.


54 posted on 12/26/2011 6:01:16 PM PST by Lancey Howard
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 GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach
Thanks Daffynition for the topic, thanks humblegunner for the link over in the other topic, and thanks Captain Beyond for pinging me to the other topic: The approach was not novel -- a similar, much smaller program was run during the Eisenhower administration, one can see one of the "cans" at the Air & Space museum. But 60 miles of film times 19 satellites, that's a lot of info. Bravo to our cold warriors!

Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution.

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.


55 posted on 12/26/2011 6:03:16 PM PST by SunkenCiv (Merry Christmas, Happy New Year! May 2013 be even Happier!)
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To: IronJack

I had an SR10 in ‘73 but we also had to have the slide rule for some old school profs.


56 posted on 12/26/2011 6:30:16 PM PST by Domestic Church (AMDG ... Merry Christmas!)
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To: shove_it; Bobalu
In the 60's came the Friden calculator.

That model (STW-10) came out in 1949. The Apartment is from 1960.

During the Manhattan Project there was a unit that did calculations, managed by Richard Feynman. I have read that they used Friden calculators.

57 posted on 12/26/2011 7:42:32 PM PST by wideminded
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To: SES1066

In B-school, 20 years ago, the HP-12c equivalent that was suggested, if RPN wasn’t your forte, was the Sharp EL-733


58 posted on 12/26/2011 7:50:10 PM PST by Calvin Locke
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To: Lancey Howard

We talking about this at lunch; a friend who in charge of all the IT for Bloomberg was commenting on how technology has advanced so quickly ...can you imagine scooping-up film that has parachuted into the pacific Ocean? compared to now and what we can do from our smart phone?


59 posted on 12/26/2011 8:03:32 PM PST by Daffynition (*Pray for whatever passes for America these days* Amen. ~ ScottinVA)
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To: wideminded
During the Manhattan Project there was a unit that did calculations, managed by Richard Feynman. I have read that they used Friden calculators.

My God! can you imagine all of the whirring and clicking!

60 posted on 12/26/2011 8:23:08 PM PST by Bobalu (even Jesus knew the poor would always be with us)
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