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Advanced Technology Airborne Computer

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The Advanced Technology Airborne Computer (ATAC) was a product of Itek (a division of Litton Industries), used on US naval aircraft, and the NASA Galileo (spacecraft).[1]: 198–201 

The ATAC was built using AMD 2901 4-bit processors and had a basic cycle time of 250 ns.[1]: 198  It could be programmed in HAL/S, and could be microprogrammed to add new instructions. The Galileo project added four instructions.

Use on US Naval aircraft

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The Galileo Attitude and Articulation Control System (AACSE) was controlled by two Itek Advanced Technology Airborne Computers (ATAC), built using radiation-hardened 2901s.[1]: 201, 207  The project wrote their own GRACOS (Galileo realtime Attitude Control Operating System).

The Galileo project had radiation-hardened 2901 processors made (by Sandia National Lab) for the spacecraft.[1]: 202 

References

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  1. ^ a b c d Tomayko, James E. (March 1988). Computers in Spaceflight: The NASA Experience (PDF) (Report). NASA History Office. Retrieved 29 October 2020.

Further reading

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