re: Modern Computing Began 40 Years Ago Today

JakeBrake — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 05:41:16 GMT

Hi Steve,

I would like to offer a correction regarding mouse, interactive computing, and hyperlinks. These concepts were being developed for the US Navy in 1957 - 51 years ago. The trackball (inverted mouse) was an input device for the Naval Tactical Data System - display console AN/SYA-1 and successors. These RADAR consoles were refined over the years. When I last tested this software, the AN/UYA-4 display was the most common in the fleet. Over the life of my affiliation with the USN, I used SYA-1, SYA-4, and UYA-4. All featured trackballs.

You can see a UYA-4 console with trackball on page 46 of this document: http://www.firecontrolman.com/Bibliography/FC,%20VOL%2005%2014102.pdf

This was interactive computing. Also, one could say a form of hyperlnks existed. If one used the trackball and "assert" button on a computer-generated symbol, one would hyperlink to symbol details.

The AN/SYA-1 is discussed here: http://www.janes.com/articles/Janes-Naval-Weapon-Systems/NTDS-ACDS-AN-SYQ-20-United-States.html

Unfortunately it is not easy to dig up photos of those consoles.

Regards...

Jake

re: Modern Computing Began 40 Years Ago Today

SteveRowe — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 21:02:33 GMT

Thanks for the information Jake. I didn't know that. I had only ever heard of the work going on at SRI.