125-740: The AN/FSQ-7 Combat Direction Central , referred to as the Q7 for short, was a computerized air defence command and control system. It was used by the United States Air Force for ground-controlled interception as part of the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment network during the Cold War . The name “AN/FSQ” derives from Army-Navy / Fixed Special eQuipment . An advancement of the pioneering MIT Whirlwind II digital computer design, and manufactured by IBM as prime contractor,
250-482: A Department of Defense (DoD) initiative, McGuire will be the lead service in the first tri-service Joint super-base, combining its infrastructure support with the support of Fort Dix (Army) and Naval Air Engineering Station Lakehurst (Navy). Additionally, the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC) identified several units to be added to Team McGuire over the next few years, including contingents from every service branch. Construction of many new facilities,
375-510: A binary system meant that Zuse's machines were easier to build and potentially more reliable, given the technologies available at that time. The Z3 was not itself a universal computer but could be extended to be Turing complete . Zuse's next computer, the Z4 , became the world's first commercial computer; after initial delay due to the Second World War, it was completed in 1950 and delivered to
500-632: A central processing unit (CPU) in the form of a microprocessor , together with some type of computer memory , typically semiconductor memory chips. The processing element carries out arithmetic and logical operations, and a sequencing and control unit can change the order of operations in response to stored information . Peripheral devices include input devices ( keyboards , mice , joysticks , etc.), output devices ( monitors , printers , etc.), and input/output devices that perform both functions (e.g. touchscreens ). Peripheral devices allow information to be retrieved from an external source, and they enable
625-419: A keyboard , and computed and printed the results, demonstrating the feasibility of an electromechanical analytical engine. During the first half of the 20th century, many scientific computing needs were met by increasingly sophisticated analog computers, which used a direct mechanical or electrical model of the problem as a basis for computation . However, these were not programmable and generally lacked
750-514: A mass-production basis, which limited them to a number of specialized applications. At the University of Manchester , a team under the leadership of Tom Kilburn designed and built a machine using the newly developed transistors instead of valves. Their first transistorized computer and the first in the world, was operational by 1953 , and a second version was completed there in April 1955. However,
875-429: A monolithic integrated circuit (IC) chip. Kilby's IC had external wire connections, which made it difficult to mass-produce. Noyce also came up with his own idea of an integrated circuit half a year later than Kilby. Noyce's invention was the first true monolithic IC chip. His chip solved many practical problems that Kilby's had not. Produced at Fairchild Semiconductor, it was made of silicon , whereas Kilby's chip
1000-634: A 1998 retrospective, it was the first working machine to contain all of the elements essential to a modern electronic computer. As soon as the Baby had demonstrated the feasibility of its design, a project began at the university to develop it into a practically useful computer, the Manchester Mark 1 . The Mark 1 in turn quickly became the prototype for the Ferranti Mark 1 , the world's first commercially available general-purpose computer. Built by Ferranti , it
1125-506: A Chip (SoCs) are complete computers on a microchip (or chip) the size of a coin. They may or may not have integrated RAM and flash memory . If not integrated, the RAM is usually placed directly above (known as Package on package ) or below (on the opposite side of the circuit board ) the SoC, and the flash memory is usually placed right next to the SoC. This is done to improve data transfer speeds, as
1250-728: A Civilian Conservation Corps project. This was on newly acquired land for the great Army Air Forces expansion approved by the Roosevelt Administration. This nascent airfield and wooden structures was named "Rudd Field." To meet the requirements for a possible world war, Rudd Field was renamed Fort Dix Army Air Base in 1939, and underwent massive expansion from 1940 to 1941. Runways constructed consisted of three concrete surfaced, 7100x150(N/S), 7100x150(NE/SW), 5400x150(E/W), and one macadam surfaced, 8100x150(NW/SE). The base had its first permanent Army Air Force occupant in November 1941 when
1375-654: A beautification effort, and new privately owned contract family housing, make McGuire one of the premier Air Force installations. References for history introduction, major commands and major units In July 2007, the United States Environmental Protection Agency issued an order to the US military to clean up the contaminants at McGuire AFB. Areas requiring cleanup include landfills , fire training areas, pesticide mixing shops, fuel storage and leak areas, underground tanks and fuel lines,
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#17328453481981500-836: A centralized center for Air Defense, intended to provide early warning and response for a Soviet nuclear attack. Developed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) engineers and scientists, SAGE monitored North American skies for possible attack by crewed aircraft and missiles for 25 years. The heart of the system, the AN/FSQ-7 computer, was the first computer to have an internal memory composed of "magnetic cores," thousands of tiny ferrite rings that served as reversible electromagnets. SAGE also introduced computer-driven displays, online terminals, time sharing, high-reliability computation, digital signal processing, digital transmission over telephone lines, digital track-while-scan, digital simulation, computer networking, and duplex computing. The NYADS
1625-478: A group of computers that are linked and function together, such as a computer network or computer cluster . A broad range of industrial and consumer products use computers as control systems , including simple special-purpose devices like microwave ovens and remote controls , and factory devices like industrial robots . Computers are at the core of general-purpose devices such as personal computers and mobile devices such as smartphones . Computers power
1750-421: A long-range photographic reconnaissance unit equipped with a mixture of R B-17 Flying Fortresses and R B-29 Superfortresses equipped with wide variety of photographic reconnaissance and mapping cameras in the bomb bays. It moved to Barksdale Air Force Base , Louisiana, on 1 October 1949. With the departure of the 91st SRW, control of McGuire AFB was reassigned to Continental Air Command (ConAC). ConAC assigned
1875-403: A medieval European counting house , a checkered cloth would be placed on a table, and markers moved around on it according to certain rules, as an aid to calculating sums of money. The Antikythera mechanism is believed to be the earliest known mechanical analog computer , according to Derek J. de Solla Price . It was designed to calculate astronomical positions. It was discovered in 1901 in
2000-566: A mission to search for German U-boats in the coastal waters of the Atlantic Coast and to fly aerial coverage of friendly convoys off the east coast with Douglas O-46 and North American O-47 light observation planes. In August 1943, this mission was turned over to the United States Navy. Air Technical Service Command began using the base in 1943 overhauling, servicing and preparing aircraft for overseas shipment to North Africa and to
2125-520: A much more general design, an analytical engine , was possible. The input of programs and data was to be provided to the machine via punched cards , a method being used at the time to direct mechanical looms such as the Jacquard loom . For output, the machine would have a printer, a curve plotter and a bell. The machine would also be able to punch numbers onto cards to be read in later. The engine would incorporate an arithmetic logic unit , control flow in
2250-524: A number of successes at breaking encrypted German military communications. The German encryption machine, Enigma , was first attacked with the help of the electro-mechanical bombes which were often run by women. To crack the more sophisticated German Lorenz SZ 40/42 machine, used for high-level Army communications, Max Newman and his colleagues commissioned Flowers to build the Colossus . He spent eleven months from early February 1943 designing and building
2375-403: A pair of AN/FSQ-7 computers to provide fault tolerance . One was active at any time, the other on standby. The standby system copied data from the active system to minimize switchover time if needed. A scheduled switchover took place every day. The AN/FSQ-7 calculated one or more predicted interception points for assigning manned aircraft or CIM-10 Bomarc missiles to intercept an intruder using
2500-546: A sequence of sets of values. The whole machine was to be controlled by a read-only program, which was complete with provisions for conditional branching . He also introduced the idea of floating-point arithmetic . In 1920, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the invention of the arithmometer , Torres presented in Paris the Electromechanical Arithmometer, which allowed a user to input arithmetic problems through
2625-460: A successful demonstration of its use in computing tables in 1906. In his work Essays on Automatics published in 1914, Leonardo Torres Quevedo wrote a brief history of Babbage's efforts at constructing a mechanical Difference Engine and Analytical Engine. The paper contains a design of a machine capable to calculate formulas like a x ( y − z ) 2 {\displaystyle a^{x}(y-z)^{2}} , for
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#17328453481982750-402: A universal Turing machine. Early computing machines had fixed programs. Changing its function required the re-wiring and re-structuring of the machine. With the proposal of the stored-program computer this changed. A stored-program computer includes by design an instruction set and can store in memory a set of instructions (a program ) that details the computation . The theoretical basis for
2875-500: Is a machine that can be programmed to automatically carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations ( computation ). Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs . These programs enable computers to perform a wide range of tasks. The term computer system may refer to a nominally complete computer that includes the hardware , operating system , software , and peripheral equipment needed and used for full operation; or to
3000-660: Is located in portions of both New Hanover Township and North Hanover Township . As of the 2020 United States census , the McGuire Air Force Base CDP had a total population of 4,522. The host unit at McGuire AFB is the 87th Air Base Wing (87 ABW), United States Air Force Expeditionary Center , AMC. The 87 ABW provides installation management to all of JB MDL. The wing also provides mission-ready, expeditionary Airmen to support Unified Combatant Commanders in ongoing military operations. The wing consists of more than 3,100 officers, enlisted, and civilian personnel from
3125-405: Is placed on data primarily so that the multiplication of two numbers will always result in a product smaller than either of the numbers, thus positively avoiding overflow. Properly scaling calculations was the responsibility of the programmer. Instructions used the right half word plus the left sign bit to form addresses, yielding a 17-bit address space. The remainder of the left half word specified
3250-463: Is the stored program , where all the instructions for computing are stored in memory. Von Neumann acknowledged that the central concept of the modern computer was due to this paper. Turing machines are to this day a central object of study in theory of computation . Except for the limitations imposed by their finite memory stores, modern computers are said to be Turing-complete , which is to say, they have algorithm execution capability equivalent to
3375-615: The 2d Fighter-Interceptor Squadron and 5th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron . These were replaced in 1955 by the 332d Fighter-Interceptor Squadron and 539th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron . These squadrons flew a variety of ADC interceptors in the 1950s, starting with the F-94 Starfire in 1952, upgrading to the F-84 Thunderjet in 1953, and finally the interceptor F-86D Sabre later in 1953. Military Air Transport Service took over jurisdiction of McGuire AFB on 1 July 1954 and took over
3500-721: The 59th Observation Group took up station on 14 November. Initially during 1941–42 the Group operated a wide range of aircraft, including the BC-1A, L-59, O-46, O-47, O-49 Vigilant, and O-52 Owl, engaging in antisubmarine patrols along the East coast. After the United States' entry into World War II , Fort Dix Army Air Base was used as a training and facility for numerous service units under First Air Force . Once organized and prepared for overseas duty, these units provided support and technical sections for
3625-603: The Antikythera wreck off the Greek island of Antikythera , between Kythera and Crete , and has been dated to approximately c. 100 BCE . Devices of comparable complexity to the Antikythera mechanism would not reappear until the fourteenth century. Many mechanical aids to calculation and measurement were constructed for astronomical and navigation use. The planisphere was a star chart invented by Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī in
3750-504: The E6B circular slide rule used for time and distance calculations on light aircraft. In the 1770s, Pierre Jaquet-Droz , a Swiss watchmaker , built a mechanical doll ( automaton ) that could write holding a quill pen. By switching the number and order of its internal wheels different letters, and hence different messages, could be produced. In effect, it could be mechanically "programmed" to read instructions. Along with two other complex machines,
3875-623: The ETH Zurich . The computer was manufactured by Zuse's own company, Zuse KG , which was founded in 1941 as the first company with the sole purpose of developing computers in Berlin. The Z4 served as the inspiration for the construction of the ERMETH , the first Swiss computer and one of the first in Europe. Purely electronic circuit elements soon replaced their mechanical and electromechanical equivalents, at
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4000-565: The Internet , which links billions of computers and users. Early computers were meant to be used only for calculations. Simple manual instruments like the abacus have aided people in doing calculations since ancient times. Early in the Industrial Revolution , some mechanical devices were built to automate long, tedious tasks, such as guiding patterns for looms . More sophisticated electrical machines did specialized analog calculations in
4125-573: The Kingston, New York , Q7 1500 miles away. By 1959, the 2000th simulated BOMARC intercept had been completed by the Q7. The SAGE/ Missile Master test program conducted large-scale field testing of the ATABE mathematical model using radar tracks of actual Strategic Air Command and Air Defense Command aircraft conducting mock penetrations into defense sectors (cf. Operation Skyshield ). The vacuum-tube SAGE network
4250-489: The microcomputer revolution in the 1970s. The speed, power, and versatility of computers have been increasing dramatically ever since then, with transistor counts increasing at a rapid pace ( Moore's law noted that counts doubled every two years), leading to the Digital Revolution during the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Conventionally, a modern computer consists of at least one processing element , typically
4375-504: The "second generation" of computers. Compared to vacuum tubes, transistors have many advantages: they are smaller, and require less power than vacuum tubes, so give off less heat. Junction transistors were much more reliable than vacuum tubes and had longer, indefinite, service life. Transistorized computers could contain tens of thousands of binary logic circuits in a relatively compact space. However, early junction transistors were relatively bulky devices that were difficult to manufacture on
4500-513: The 1920s, Vannevar Bush and others developed mechanical differential analyzers. In the 1890s, the Spanish engineer Leonardo Torres Quevedo began to develop a series of advanced analog machines that could solve real and complex roots of polynomials , which were published in 1901 by the Paris Academy of Sciences . Charles Babbage , an English mechanical engineer and polymath , originated
4625-523: The 1939 Twin Lights Station in New Jersey, and the post- World War II experimental Cape Cod System used a Whirlwind I computer at Cambridge, Massachusetts to network long-range and several short-range radars . The key Whirlwind modification for radar netting was the development of magnetic-core memory that vastly improved reliability, doubled operating speed, and quadrupled input speed relative to
4750-531: The 514th Air Mobility Wing (AFRC), has supported every major type of air mobility mission over the past 15 years. The following units are assigned to McGuire AFB: McGuire is the only base in both the Air Mobility Command and the entire U.S. Air Force hosting three AMC-gained flying wings of the Regular Air Force, Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard . McGuire is also host to: McGuire hosts
4875-585: The AN/FSQ-7 was the largest discrete computer system ever built. Each of the 24 installed machines weighed 250 tons . The AN/FSQ-7 used a total of 60,000 vacuum tubes (49,000 in the computers) and up to 3 megawatts of electricity, performing about 75,000 instructions per second for networking regional radars. Installations in the USAF Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) air defense network were configured as duplex systems, using
5000-456: The Air Force, Army and Navy. The 87th Air Base Wing is commanded by Colonel Bridget V. Gigliotti. Its Command Chief Master Sergeant is Chief Master Sergeant Tony B. Jenkins. McGuire originated in 1941 as Fort Dix Army Airfield. Closed briefly after World War II , it reopened in 1948 as McGuire Air Force Base. The base was named after Major Thomas B. McGuire Jr. , Medal of Honor recipient, and
5125-554: The Apes TV series (Season 1, Episode 5, "The Legacy" aired October 1974), and many others. The Computer History Museum displays several AN/FSQ-7 components. MIT selected IBM as the prime contractor for equipment construction. The Central Computer System of the AN/FSQ-7 had two computers for redundancy each with Arithmetic, Core Memory, Instruction Control, Maintenance Control, Selection & IO Control, and Program elements. The Q7 had input/output devices such as: Punched card data
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5250-626: The Arctic, the Antarctic, South America, the Far East, and to Southeast Asia combat areas during the Vietnam War . From 1967, McGuire was the best-known C-141 Starlifter base in the world, possessing up to a quarter of MAC's fleet of that aircraft until its retirement in 1994. On 1 December 1991, the wing was redesignated as the 438th Airlift Wing and implemented the objective wing organization. On 1 June 1992, it
5375-628: The Automatic Target and Battery Evaluation (ATABE) algorithm. Also used in the Nike AN/FSG-1 system , ATABE automated the Whiz Wheel (Felsenthal CPU-73 A/P Air Navigation Attack Computer) method used in manual command post operations. The Q7 fire button launched the Bomarc, and an additional Q7 algorithm automatically directed the missile during climb and cruise to the beginning of its supersonic dive on
5500-547: The Azores, Bermuda and throughout the southeastern United States also reported to 21st AF. The 438th MAW completed the replacement of the prop-driven transports of MATS with the new Lockheed C-141 Starlifter . For the next 30 years, the 438th MAW and transported military cargo, mail and passengers worldwide, particularly in the Eastern United States, Atlantic, European and Mediterranean areas, with frequent special missions to
5625-612: The Cambridge EDSAC of 1949, became operational in April 1951 and ran the world's first routine office computer job . The concept of a field-effect transistor was proposed by Julius Edgar Lilienfeld in 1925. John Bardeen and Walter Brattain , while working under William Shockley at Bell Labs , built the first working transistor , the point-contact transistor , in 1947, which was followed by Shockley's bipolar junction transistor in 1948. From 1955 onwards, transistors replaced vacuum tubes in computer designs, giving rise to
5750-577: The EDVAC in 1945. The Manchester Baby was the world's first stored-program computer . It was built at the University of Manchester in England by Frederic C. Williams , Tom Kilburn and Geoff Tootill , and ran its first program on 21 June 1948. It was designed as a testbed for the Williams tube , the first random-access digital storage device. Although the computer was described as "small and primitive" by
5875-451: The ENIAC were six women, often known collectively as the "ENIAC girls". It combined the high speed of electronics with the ability to be programmed for many complex problems. It could add or subtract 5000 times a second, a thousand times faster than any other machine. It also had modules to multiply, divide, and square root. High speed memory was limited to 20 words (about 80 bytes). Built under
6000-561: The FSQ 7 memory 1 had 65,536 words and memory 2 had 4096 words. At Luke Air Force Base , the FSQ-7 held 65,536 words at each bank and the FSQ-8 4096 words at each bank. For data storage, each word was divided into two halves, each half was a 15-bit number with a sign bit . Arithmetic operations were performed on both halves simultaneously. Each number was treated as a fraction between −1 and 1. This restriction
6125-524: The MOS transistor, was invented at Bell Labs between 1955 and 1960 and was the first truly compact transistor that could be miniaturized and mass-produced for a wide range of uses. With its high scalability , and much lower power consumption and higher density than bipolar junction transistors, the MOSFET made it possible to build high-density integrated circuits . In addition to data processing, it also enabled
6250-667: The McGuire unit of Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst , is a United States Air Force base in Burlington County , in the U.S. state of New Jersey , approximately 16.1 miles (25.9 km) south-southeast of Trenton . McGuire is under the jurisdiction of the Air Mobility Command . It was consolidated with two adjoining US Army and Navy facilities to become part of Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst (JB MDL) on 1 October 2009. The McGuire Air Force Base census-designated place (CDP)
6375-712: The Mississippi River and the east coast of Africa and in Central and South America. On 1 January 1966 MATS was discontinued and its assets were assigned to the new Military Airlift Command (MAC). The 1611th ATW was discontinued and its mission taken over by the 438th Military Airlift Wing . EASTAF was re-designated as the 21st Air Force . 21st AF continued the mission of EASTAF, controlling MAC airlift wings at Dover AFB , Delaware and Charleston AFB , South Carolina and well as McGuire. Depending upon command organization at different times, airlift and airlift support units in Europe,
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#17328453481986500-538: The NYADS. Within a year of becoming operational, a Bomarc-A with a nuclear warhead caught fire on 7 June 1960 following the explosive rupture of its onboard helium tank. While the missile's explosives didn't detonate the heat melted the warhead, releasing plutonium which the fire crews then spread around. The Air Force and the Atomic Energy Commission cleaned up the site and covered it with concrete; fortunately, this
6625-663: The Northeast United States, primarily for European flights. Tenant units of MATS (and later MAC) at McGuire were the Air Weather Service and Air Rescue Service squadrons. On 1 June 1955, MATS moved the Eastern Transport Air Force (EASTAF) to McGuire from Westover AFB , Massachusetts when SAC and Eighth Air Force took over. EASTAF was one of three components of MATS worldwide airlift force, controlling all Air Force strategic airlift operations between
6750-526: The Q7 at Luke AFB was demolished in February 1984. The SABRE airline reservation system used AN/FSQ-7 technology. Q7 components were used as props in numerous films and television series needing futuristic-looking computers, despite the fact they were built in the 1950s. Q7 components were used in The Time Tunnel , The Towering Inferno , Logan's Run , WarGames , Independence Day , Planet of
6875-450: The Scottish scientist Sir William Thomson in 1872 was of great utility to navigation in shallow waters. It used a system of pulleys and wires to automatically calculate predicted tide levels for a set period at a particular location. The differential analyser , a mechanical analog computer designed to solve differential equations by integration , used wheel-and-disc mechanisms to perform
7000-488: The U.S. Although the ENIAC was similar to the Colossus, it was much faster, more flexible, and it was Turing-complete. Like the Colossus, a "program" on the ENIAC was defined by the states of its patch cables and switches, a far cry from the stored program electronic machines that came later. Once a program was written, it had to be mechanically set into the machine with manual resetting of plugs and switches. The programmers of
7125-533: The US, John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford E. Berry of Iowa State University developed and tested the Atanasoff–Berry Computer (ABC) in 1942, the first "automatic electronic digital computer". This design was also all-electronic and used about 300 vacuum tubes, with capacitors fixed in a mechanically rotating drum for memory. During World War II, the British code-breakers at Bletchley Park achieved
7250-537: The United Kingdom. This mission continued until the end of the war in 1945, then received returning aircraft from Europe and arranged their shipment to operational bases or to storage locations. Part of this mission was the temporary basing of returning combat (primarily bombardment) groups from the overseas combat theaters and, with the Army Service Forces coordinating their inactivation. Fort Dix Army Air Base
7375-574: The XD-1 was in August and the prototype was complete in October 1955, except for displays. DC-1 at McGuire Air Force Base was the first operational site of the AN/FSQ-7 with consoles scheduled for delivery Aug–Oct 1956. Groundbreaking at McChord Air Force Base was in 1957 where the "electronic brain" began arriving in November 1958. The Cape Canaveral BOMARC 624-XY1 's intercept of a target drone in August 1958 used
7500-859: The advent of the integrated circuit (IC). The idea of the integrated circuit was first conceived by a radar scientist working for the Royal Radar Establishment of the Ministry of Defence , Geoffrey W.A. Dummer . Dummer presented the first public description of an integrated circuit at the Symposium on Progress in Quality Electronic Components in Washington, D.C. , on 7 May 1952. The first working ICs were invented by Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments and Robert Noyce at Fairchild Semiconductor . Kilby recorded his initial ideas concerning
7625-635: The base to Air Defense Command (ADC), at the time an operating agency of ConAC. ADC took jurisdiction of the base on 1 January 1951 with its re-establishment as a separate major command. The 52d Fighter Wing, All Weather was assigned to the base, being moved from Mitchel Field , Long Island on 4 October 1949. Equipped with very long-range F-82 Twin Mustangs , the 52d Fighter Group, All Weather engaged in interceptor training missions against SAC B-29 and B-50 Superfortress bombers simulating air defense missions against incoming Soviet Tupolev Tu-4 bombers. The 52d remained at McGuire until 6 February 1952, when it
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#17328453481987750-507: The basic concept which underlies all electronic digital computers. By 1938, the United States Navy had developed an electromechanical analog computer small enough to use aboard a submarine . This was the Torpedo Data Computer , which used trigonometry to solve the problem of firing a torpedo at a moving target. During World War II similar devices were developed in other countries as well. Early digital computers were electromechanical ; electric switches drove mechanical relays to perform
7875-530: The best Arithmetician that euer [ sic ] breathed, and he reduceth thy dayes into a short number." This usage of the term referred to a human computer , a person who carried out calculations or computations . The word continued to have the same meaning until the middle of the 20th century. During the latter part of this period, women were often hired as computers because they could be paid less than their male counterparts. By 1943, most human computers were women. The Online Etymology Dictionary gives
8000-471: The calculation. These devices had a low operating speed and were eventually superseded by much faster all-electric computers, originally using vacuum tubes . The Z2 , created by German engineer Konrad Zuse in 1939 in Berlin , was one of the earliest examples of an electromechanical relay computer. In 1941, Zuse followed his earlier machine up with the Z3 , the world's first working electromechanical programmable , fully automatic digital computer. The Z3
8125-486: The concept of a programmable computer. Considered the " father of the computer ", he conceptualized and invented the first mechanical computer in the early 19th century. After working on his difference engine he announced his invention in 1822, in a paper to the Royal Astronomical Society , titled "Note on the application of machinery to the computation of astronomical and mathematical tables". He also designed to aid in navigational calculations, in 1833 he realized that
8250-440: The data signals do not have to travel long distances. Since ENIAC in 1945, computers have advanced enormously, with modern SoCs (such as the Snapdragon 865) being the size of a coin while also being hundreds of thousands of times more powerful than ENIAC, integrating billions of transistors, and consuming only a few watts of power. The first mobile computers were heavy and ran from mains power. The 50 lb (23 kg) IBM 5100
8375-434: The data value retrieved from memory, and a B register that held the least significant bits of a multiplication, the magnitude of a division, as well as shifted bits. There was also a program counter, four index registers, and a 16-bit real-time clock register which was incremented 32 times a second. Trigonometric sine and cosine functions used 1.4 degree precision (256 values) via look-up tables. Computer A computer
8500-447: The decision of the British Government to cease funding. Babbage's failure to complete the analytical engine can be chiefly attributed to political and financial difficulties as well as his desire to develop an increasingly sophisticated computer and to move ahead faster than anyone else could follow. Nevertheless, his son, Henry Babbage , completed a simplified version of the analytical engine's computing unit (the mill ) in 1888. He gave
8625-401: The direction of John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert at the University of Pennsylvania, ENIAC's development and construction lasted from 1943 to full operation at the end of 1945. The machine was huge, weighing 30 tons, using 200 kilowatts of electric power and contained over 18,000 vacuum tubes, 1,500 relays, and hundreds of thousands of resistors, capacitors, and inductors. The principle of
8750-431: The doll is at the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire of Neuchâtel , Switzerland , and still operates. In 1831–1835, mathematician and engineer Giovanni Plana devised a Perpetual Calendar machine , which through a system of pulleys and cylinders could predict the perpetual calendar for every year from 0 CE (that is, 1 BCE) to 4000 CE, keeping track of leap years and varying day length. The tide-predicting machine invented by
8875-422: The early 11th century. The astrolabe was invented in the Hellenistic world in either the 1st or 2nd centuries BCE and is often attributed to Hipparchus . A combination of the planisphere and dioptra , the astrolabe was effectively an analog computer capable of working out several different kinds of problems in spherical astronomy . An astrolabe incorporating a mechanical calendar computer and gear -wheels
9000-417: The early 2000s. These smartphones and tablets run on a variety of operating systems and recently became the dominant computing device on the market. These are powered by System on a Chip (SoCs), which are complete computers on a microchip the size of a coin. Computers can be classified in a number of different ways, including: McGuire Air Force Base McGuire AFB/McGuire , the common name of
9125-399: The early 20th century. The first digital electronic calculating machines were developed during World War II , both electromechanical and using thermionic valves . The first semiconductor transistors in the late 1940s were followed by the silicon -based MOSFET (MOS transistor) and monolithic integrated circuit chip technologies in the late 1950s, leading to the microprocessor and
9250-584: The end of the National Anthem . These same planes were also responsible for the Super Bowl XLVIII flyover and missing-man formation which came at the end of opera star Renee Fleming 's rendition of the National Anthem. McGuire Air Force Base was established as Fort Dix Airport in 1937 and first opened to military aircraft on 9 January 1941. On 13 January 1948 the United States Air Force renamed
9375-473: The exact definition of the term "microprocessor", it is largely undisputed that the first single-chip microprocessor was the Intel 4004 , designed and realized by Federico Faggin with his silicon-gate MOS IC technology, along with Ted Hoff , Masatoshi Shima and Stanley Mazor at Intel . In the early 1970s, MOS IC technology enabled the integration of more than 10,000 transistors on a single chip. System on
9500-590: The facility McGuire Air Force Base in honor of Major Thomas Buchanan McGuire Jr. , (1920–1945). Medal of Honor recipient and second place American flying ace of World War II , Major McGuire died on 7 January 1945 when his P-38 Lightning spun out of control and crashed on Negros Island in the Philippines as he attempted to aid his wingman during an aerial dogfight. Flight operations to support Camp Dix at an adjacent airfield took place as early as 1926. Facilities and runways to support an air mission began in 1937 as
9625-454: The facility underwent a modernization program to convert the World War II base into a base for postwar jet aircraft. In addition, support facilities were upgraded from World War II temporary wooden structures to permanent structures for long-term use. SAC activated the 91st Strategic Reconnaissance Wing at the newly re-designated McGuire Air Force Base on 10 November 1948. The 91st SRW was
9750-503: The first Colossus. After a functional test in December 1943, Colossus was shipped to Bletchley Park, where it was delivered on 18 January 1944 and attacked its first message on 5 February. Colossus was the world's first electronic digital programmable computer. It used a large number of valves (vacuum tubes). It had paper-tape input and was capable of being configured to perform a variety of boolean logical operations on its data, but it
9875-725: The first attested use of computer in the 1640s, meaning 'one who calculates'; this is an "agent noun from compute (v.)". The Online Etymology Dictionary states that the use of the term to mean " 'calculating machine' (of any type) is from 1897." The Online Etymology Dictionary indicates that the "modern use" of the term, to mean 'programmable digital electronic computer' dates from "1945 under this name; [in a] theoretical [sense] from 1937, as Turing machine ". The name has remained, although modern computers are capable of many higher-level functions. Devices have been used to aid computation for thousands of years, mostly using one-to-one correspondence with fingers . The earliest counting device
10000-520: The flight line of McGuire in 1956, with the ADC interceptors being reassigned. Air Defense Command became a tenant organization on the base, with the 4709th ADW being re-designated as first the 4621st Air Defense Wing on 1 April 1956, and shortly afterwards as the New York Air Defense Sector (NYADS) on 1 October 1956 under the 26th Air Division . The NYADS was in large part responsible for one of
10125-537: The flying needs of its mission partners on JB MDL. Air Force and civilian AMC-contracted aircraft use McGuire's two runways to facilitate this mission. Many hundreds of thousands of Air Force, Army, Navy , and Marine Corps personnel have left the United States for overseas locations from McGuire AFB. Airplanes from McGuire have provided the flyovers for Philadelphia Eagles games and Major League Baseball All-Star and World Series games played in Philadelphia at
10250-409: The form of conditional branching and loops , and integrated memory , making it the first design for a general-purpose computer that could be described in modern terms as Turing-complete . The machine was about a century ahead of its time. All the parts for his machine had to be made by hand – this was a major problem for a device with thousands of parts. Eventually, the project was dissolved with
10375-469: The foundational projects of the computer era: the development of the SAGE ( Semi-Automatic Ground Environment ) air defense system, from its first test at Bedford, Massachusetts , in 1951, to the installation of the first operational Data Center (DC-01) at McGuire AFB in 1957, becoming operational on 1 July 1958. The SAGE system was a network linking Air Force (and later FAA) General Surveillance Radar stations into
10500-606: The group requirements as a whole: Flying control , Ordnance , airfield security , firefighting , Post Exchange (PX), Special Services , Mail , Transportation (" motor pool "), Communications , Radar , Gunnery instruction , Personal Equipment , and Weather ( Meteorology ). The service group also had its own mess section. The service group had approximately 30 officers and 300 to 400 enlisted men. This training continued until 1944. In late 1942, Army Air Forces Antisubmarine Command (AAFASC) took up tenant status at Fort Dix AAB. The 378th Bombardment Group patrolled with
10625-462: The integrated circuit in July 1958, successfully demonstrating the first working integrated example on 12 September 1958. In his patent application of 6 February 1959, Kilby described his new device as "a body of semiconductor material ... wherein all the components of the electronic circuit are completely integrated". However, Kilby's invention was a hybrid integrated circuit (hybrid IC), rather than
10750-411: The integration. In 1876, Sir William Thomson had already discussed the possible construction of such calculators, but he had been stymied by the limited output torque of the ball-and-disk integrators . In a differential analyzer, the output of one integrator drove the input of the next integrator, or a graphing output. The torque amplifier was the advance that allowed these machines to work. Starting in
10875-569: The machine did make use of valves to generate its 125 kHz clock waveforms and in the circuitry to read and write on its magnetic drum memory , so it was not the first completely transistorized computer. That distinction goes to the Harwell CADET of 1955, built by the electronics division of the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell . The metal–oxide–silicon field-effect transistor (MOSFET), also known as
11000-515: The men and women of McGuire AFB continue to be at the forefront of operations, with regular deployments of airlift and aerial refueling aircraft as well as support elements for combat operations. McGuire hosted a rapidly assembled STRATCOM Joint Task Force satellite recovery team with no prior notice in February 2008, winning praise for its flexibility and support. Team McGuire remains engaged in providing direct combat support to two regional conflicts and provided personnel, resources and aircraft. Due to
11125-452: The modern computer was proposed by Alan Turing in his seminal 1936 paper, On Computable Numbers . Turing proposed a simple device that he called "Universal Computing machine" and that is now known as a universal Turing machine . He proved that such a machine is capable of computing anything that is computable by executing instructions (program) stored on tape, allowing the machine to be programmable. The fundamental concept of Turing's design
11250-403: The more famous Sir William Thomson. The art of mechanical analog computing reached its zenith with the differential analyzer , built by H. L. Hazen and Vannevar Bush at MIT starting in 1927. This built on the mechanical integrators of James Thomson and the torque amplifiers invented by H. W. Nieman. A dozen of these devices were built before their obsolescence became obvious. By the 1950s,
11375-712: The most intact site of the eight in the United States. It has been nominated to the National Register of Historic Places . With the closure of the Bomarc site, the by then renamed Aerospace Defense Command ended its activities at McGuire AFB. The large SAGE DC-01 blockhouse is now the headquarters of the 621st Contingency Response Wing and previously housed the 21st Air Force/Expeditionary Mobility Task Force. On 1 July 1954, Military Air Transport Service (MATS) took over jurisdiction of McGuire Air Force Base. Through its successor organizations, Military Airlift Command (MAC) in 1966 and since 1992 as Air Mobility Command (AMC),
11500-455: The operation. The first three bits after the sign specified an index register . The following bits specified an instruction class, class variation and instruction-dependent auxiliary information. Addresses were written in octal notation, with the two sign bits forming a prefix, so 2.07777 would be the highest word in memory 2. Arithmetic registers were provided for both halves of the data word and included an accumulator, an A register that held
11625-575: The original Williams tube memory of the Whirlwind I. The AN/FSQ-7 was based on the larger and faster (but uncompleted) Whirlwind II design. It proved too much for MIT's resources, resulting in IBM being retained as prime contractor – though the MIT Lincoln Laboratory Division 6 still participated in AN/FSQ-7 development. Similar to the Q7, the smaller AN/FSQ-8 Combat Control Central
11750-486: The practical use of MOS transistors as memory cell storage elements, leading to the development of MOS semiconductor memory , which replaced earlier magnetic-core memory in computers. The MOSFET led to the microcomputer revolution , and became the driving force behind the computer revolution . The MOSFET is the most widely used transistor in computers, and is the fundamental building block of digital electronics . The next great advance in computing power came with
11875-546: The primary mission of McGuire has remained the strategic airlift of personnel and equipment worldwide. MATS activities at the base began on 1 July 1954 with the 1611th Air Transport Wing being activated. The 1611th ATW flew primarily C-118 Liftmaster (Navy R6D ) transports worldwide throughout its existence. It received C-135 Stratolifters in 1962 and was upgraded from a medium to a heavy transport wing. It supported Air Force Reserve associate units beginning in 1961. The wing also operated Aerial Port and Port of Embarkation for
12000-532: The results of operations to be saved and retrieved. It was not until the mid-20th century that the word acquired its modern definition; according to the Oxford English Dictionary , the first known use of the word computer was in a different sense, in a 1613 book called The Yong Mans Gleanings by the English writer Richard Brathwait : "I haue [ sic ] read the truest computer of Times, and
12125-575: The same time that digital calculation replaced analog. The engineer Tommy Flowers , working at the Post Office Research Station in London in the 1930s, began to explore the possible use of electronics for the telephone exchange . Experimental equipment that he built in 1934 went into operation five years later, converting a portion of the telephone exchange network into an electronic data processing system, using thousands of vacuum tubes . In
12250-548: The second leading ace in American history. March 3, 1960, while returning home from his army stint, Elvis Presley landed on McGuire Airforce Base, en route from Frankfurt , Germany and Glasgow Prestwick Airport , Prestwick, Scotland and Ernest Harmon Air Force Base , Stephenville, Newfoundland and Labrador , Canada. Here he disembarked the airplane, two days before his army discharge. The 305th Air Mobility Wing, 108th Air Refueling Wing (ANG), 621st Contingency Response Wing, and
12375-449: The stand up of the 621st Air Mobility Operations Group (621 AMOG) and its later reorganization to the 621st Contingency Response Wing (621 CRW), partnered with the 305 AMW and spearheaded virtually every contingency over the past 14 years, from Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR in the Balkans to Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. McGuire itself, through its support organizations, has also been a key component in
12500-478: The stored-program computer was laid out by Alan Turing in his 1936 paper. In 1945, Turing joined the National Physical Laboratory and began work on developing an electronic stored-program digital computer. His 1945 report "Proposed Electronic Calculator" was the first specification for such a device. John von Neumann at the University of Pennsylvania also circulated his First Draft of a Report on
12625-443: The success of digital electronic computers had spelled the end for most analog computing machines, but analog computers remained in use during the 1950s in some specialized applications such as education ( slide rule ) and aircraft ( control systems ). Claude Shannon 's 1937 master's thesis laid the foundations of digital computing, with his insight of applying Boolean algebra to the analysis and synthesis of switching circuits being
12750-475: The target when guidance transferred to the missile seeker system for the homing dive. Later improvements allowed transmission of Q7 guidance to autopilots of manned fighters for vectoring to targets via the SAGE Ground to Air Data Link Subsystem (cf. bomber vectoring to a Bomb Release Point in 1965–1973 Vietnam via vacuum-tube analog computers .) The first United States radar network used voice reporting to
12875-594: The transport of materials and personnel to global crisis points. In 1999, McGuire served as the lead staging base for the evacuation of Kosovo refugees in Operation OPEN ARMS; McGuire was the rally and staging point for FEMA operations in New York City after the 11 September 2001 attacks; in 2005, the base lent key support for Hurricanes Katrina and Rita . On 1 October 2003 the Twenty-First Air Force
13000-412: The versatility and accuracy of modern digital computers. The first modern analog computer was a tide-predicting machine , invented by Sir William Thomson (later to become Lord Kelvin) in 1872. The differential analyser , a mechanical analog computer designed to solve differential equations by integration using wheel-and-disc mechanisms, was conceptualized in 1876 by James Thomson , the elder brother of
13125-406: Was a 16-transistor chip built by Fred Heiman and Steven Hofstein at RCA in 1962. General Microelectronics later introduced the first commercial MOS IC in 1964, developed by Robert Norman. Following the development of the self-aligned gate (silicon-gate) MOS transistor by Robert Kerwin, Donald Klein and John Sarace at Bell Labs in 1967, the first silicon-gate MOS IC with self-aligned gates
13250-614: Was an early example. Later portables such as the Osborne 1 and Compaq Portable were considerably lighter but still needed to be plugged in. The first laptops, such as the Grid Compass , removed this requirement by incorporating batteries – and with the continued miniaturization of computing resources and advancements in portable battery life, portable computers grew in popularity in the 2000s. The same developments allowed manufacturers to integrate computing resources into cellular mobile phones by
13375-536: Was assigned to the new Air Mobility Command . On 1 October 1994, the 438th Airlift Wing was inactivated, being replaced at McGuire by the 305th Air Mobility Wing which was transferred from Grissom AFB , Indiana when Grissom was realigned via BRAC action to the Air Force Reserve Command. The C-141 was retired in 2004, being replaced by the C-17 Globemaster III . The 21st Air Force, coupled with
13500-530: Was built with 2000 relays , implementing a 22 bit word length that operated at a clock frequency of about 5–10 Hz . Program code was supplied on punched film while data could be stored in 64 words of memory or supplied from the keyboard. It was quite similar to modern machines in some respects, pioneering numerous advances such as floating-point numbers . Rather than the harder-to-implement decimal system (used in Charles Babbage 's earlier design), using
13625-493: Was completed (and obsolete) in 1963, and a system ergonomic test was performed at Luke Air Force Base in 1964. According to Harold Sackman, it "showed conclusively that the wrong timing of human and technical operations was leading to frequent truncation of the flight path tracking system." Back-Up Interceptor Control Systems (BUIC) were used to replace the AN/FSQ-7s: two remained at SAGE sites until 1983 including McChord AFB, and
13750-503: Was delivered to the University of Manchester in February 1951. At least seven of these later machines were delivered between 1953 and 1957, one of them to Shell labs in Amsterdam . In October 1947 the directors of British catering company J. Lyons & Company decided to take an active role in promoting the commercial development of computers. Lyons's LEO I computer, modelled closely on
13875-443: Was developed by Federico Faggin at Fairchild Semiconductor in 1968. The MOSFET has since become the most critical device component in modern ICs. The development of the MOS integrated circuit led to the invention of the microprocessor , and heralded an explosion in the commercial and personal use of computers. While the subject of exactly which device was the first microprocessor is contentious, partly due to lack of agreement on
14000-825: Was developed in the late 16th century and found application in gunnery, surveying and navigation. The planimeter was a manual instrument to calculate the area of a closed figure by tracing over it with a mechanical linkage. The slide rule was invented around 1620–1630, by the English clergyman William Oughtred , shortly after the publication of the concept of the logarithm . It is a hand-operated analog computer for doing multiplication and division. As slide rule development progressed, added scales provided reciprocals, squares and square roots, cubes and cube roots, as well as transcendental functions such as logarithms and exponentials, circular and hyperbolic trigonometry and other functions . Slide rules with special scales are still used for quick performance of routine calculations, such as
14125-567: Was inactivated along with the F-82s. The Twin Mustangs of the 52d FW were replaced by the ADC 4709th Defense Wing on 1 February 1952. Under the Eastern Air Defense Force , the 4709th DW (later Air Defense Wing), controlled interceptor squadrons at McGuire, as well as at Suffolk County AFB and Stewart AFB , New York, and Dover AFB , Delaware. Interceptor squadrons stationed at McGuire were
14250-449: Was invented by Abi Bakr of Isfahan , Persia in 1235. Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī invented the first mechanical geared lunisolar calendar astrolabe, an early fixed- wired knowledge processing machine with a gear train and gear-wheels, c. 1000 AD . The sector , a calculating instrument used for solving problems in proportion, trigonometry , multiplication and division, and for various functions, such as squares and cube roots,
14375-477: Was made of germanium . Noyce's monolithic IC was fabricated using the planar process , developed by his colleague Jean Hoerni in early 1959. In turn, the planar process was based on Carl Frosch and Lincoln Derick work on semiconductor surface passivation by silicon dioxide. Modern monolithic ICs are predominantly MOS ( metal–oxide–semiconductor ) integrated circuits, built from MOSFETs (MOS transistors). The earliest experimental MOS IC to be fabricated
14500-630: Was most likely a form of tally stick . Later record keeping aids throughout the Fertile Crescent included calculi (clay spheres, cones, etc.) which represented counts of items, likely livestock or grains, sealed in hollow unbaked clay containers. The use of counting rods is one example. The abacus was initially used for arithmetic tasks. The Roman abacus was developed from devices used in Babylonia as early as 2400 BCE. Since then, many other forms of reckoning boards or tables have been invented. In
14625-434: Was not Turing-complete. Nine Mk II Colossi were built (The Mk I was converted to a Mk II making ten machines in total). Colossus Mark I contained 1,500 thermionic valves (tubes), but Mark II with 2,400 valves, was both five times faster and simpler to operate than Mark I, greatly speeding the decoding process. The ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) was the first electronic programmable computer built in
14750-472: Was phased down in the fall of 1945 and was placed on Temporary Inactive Status on 15 February 1945; which changed to Inactive Status on 1 March 1946. Jurisdiction of the base was transferred to Strategic Air Command at Andrews Field, Maryland on 1 August 1947, the base remaining in inactive status. Fort Dix Army Air Base was taken out of inactive status and activated as a primary installation on 29 August 1948. Initially reactivated under Strategic Air Command ,
14875-684: Was produced without an 'Automatic Initiation Area Discriminator' A simplex version of the AN/FSQ-7 was located at the premises of the System Development Corporation in Santa Monica, California from 1957 until the premises were vacated some time after 1981. The experimental SAGE subsector , located in Lexington, Massachusetts , was completed in 1955, equipped with a prototype AN/FSQ-7 known as XD-1 in Building F. The third evaluation run with
15000-538: Was re-designated as the 21st Expeditionary Mobility Task Force , reflecting its expanded mission due to the outbreak of the Global War on Terrorism . In 2006, McGuire AFB hosted over 1,800 Lebanese Americans evacuated from the battles there between Israel and Hezbollah insurgents. In 2008, McGuire assumed responsibility for the no-fail "Red Ball Express" aerial port mission, supplying efforts in ENDURING FREEDOM. Today
15125-486: Was reassigned from 26th AD on 1 April 1966 to First Air Force , until 30 September 1968 when both the sector was inactivated along with DC-01, when budget restrictions along with when technology advances allowed the Air Force to shut down many SAGE Data Centers. The SAGE network, however, remained active until 1983. In 1959, Air Defense Command deployed the CIM-10 Bomarc surface-to-air missile to McGuire AFB. The Bomarc
15250-456: Was staffed by the 46th Air Defense Missile Squadron, activated on 1 January 1959. Two models of the Bomarc were deployed to McGuire, the liquid-fueled CIM-10A (28 missiles), and later the CIM-10B (56 missiles). The supersonic Bomarc missiles were the first long-range anti-aircraft missiles in the world, and were equipped with a W40 nuclear warhead. The site at McGuire went operational in 1959 under
15375-456: Was the only major incident involving the weapons system. The Bomarc site remained in operation under successor organizations after the inactivation of the NYADS. After its closure in 1972, the accident resulted in the site remaining off limits to the present day, primarily due to low levels of plutonium contamination. Due to the accident, the McGuire complex has never been sold or converted to other uses and remains in Air Force ownership, making it
15500-538: Was the only surface-to-air missile ever deployed by the United States Air Force. All other U.S. land-based SAMs were and are under the control of the United States Army. The Bomarc site was located 4 miles (6.4 km) ESE of the main base 40°02′06″N 074°26′29″W / 40.03500°N 74.44139°W / 40.03500; -74.44139 ( 46th ADMS ) in a separate facility, and
15625-514: Was transferred to and from the core memory as binary images . Only the rightmost 64 columns were transferred, with each row containing two 32-bit words. (The left columns could be punched using a special instruction.) Data were transferred to the line printer as a card image as well. The FSQ-7 and -8 used core memory with 32-bit words plus a parity bit, operating at a 6-microsecond cycle time. Both machines had two banks of memory, memory 1 and memory 2 (Commonly referred to as Big Mem and little Mem). On
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