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103-604: In 1927 Maitland Airport (also the Milwaukee seaplane port) was opened. It was one of the city's first airstrips. The airport remained in operation for more than 20 years before it was replaced by a Nike missile installation, established during the height of 1950s Cold War tensions. The site was one of eight in the Greater Milwaukee area and hosted both the Nike Ajax and nuclear-capable Nike Hercules missiles as

206-469: A 23,000 seat partially covered venue, in 1987. Various ethnic and cultural festivals came to be held at the festival park beginning in the 1980s, as well as several run/walks for charity events. Nike missile Project Nike (Greek: Νίκη , "Victory") was a U.S. Army project, proposed in May 1945 by Bell Laboratories , to develop a line-of-sight anti-aircraft missile system. The project delivered

309-721: A Defense Area formed a circle around these cities and bases. There was no fixed number of Nike batteries in a Defense Area and the actual number of batteries varied from a low of two in the Barksdale AFB Defense Area to a high of 22 in the Chicago Defense Area. In the Continental United States the sites were numbered from 01 to 99 starting at the north and increasing clockwise. The numbers had no relation to actual compass headings, but generally Nike sites numbered 01 to 25 were to

412-408: A Fourier synthesizer, a tide-predicting machine , which summed the individual harmonic components. Another category, not nearly as well known, used rotating shafts only for input and output, with precision racks and pinions. The racks were connected to linkages that performed the computation. At least one U.S. Naval sonar fire control computer of the later 1950s, made by Librascope, was of this type, as

515-560: A battery in Leonardo, New Jersey on 22 May 1958, killing six soldiers and four civilians. A memorial can be found at Fort Hancock in the Sandy Hook Unit of Gateway National Recreation Area . Even as Nike Ajax was being tested, work started on Nike-B, later renamed Nike Hercules (MIM-14). It improved speed, range and accuracy, and could intercept ballistic missiles . The Hercules had a range of about 100 miles (160 km),

618-478: A central missile assembly point from which missiles would be taken out to prepared above-ground launch racks ringing the defended area. However, the Army discarded this semimobile concept because the system needed to be ready for instantaneous action to fend off a "surprise attack." Instead, a fixed-site scheme was devised. Due to geographical factors, the placement of Nike batteries differed at each location. Initially,

721-604: A centralized location was crucial, and the lakefront site appeared ideal. In 1970, the Harbor Commission, which took ownership of the land from the Army, constructed a deal and began leasing the site to Summerfest for one dollar a year. The recently formed Summerfest quickly set up makeshift offices from the remaining barracks and the control building. The history of the Henry Maier Festival Park starts with Summerfest in 1968. The music festival

824-428: A comparatively intimate control and understanding of the problem, relative to digital simulations. Electronic analog computers are especially well-suited to representing situations described by differential equations. Historically, they were often used when a system of differential equations proved very difficult to solve by traditional means. As a simple example, the dynamics of a spring-mass system can be described by

927-567: A few remain intact and preserve the history of the Nike project. There are also a few sites abroad, notably in Germany, Turkey and Greece. Defense areas within the United States were: The Nike boosters were also used as stages in sounding rockets as they became surplus starting in the 1950s in the following versions: Analog computer An analog computer or analogue computer

1030-627: A fully electronic analog computer at Peenemünde Army Research Center as an embedded control system ( mixing device ) to calculate V-2 rocket trajectories from the accelerations and orientations (measured by gyroscopes ) and to stabilize and guide the missile. Mechanical analog computers were very important in gun fire control in World War II, the Korean War and well past the Vietnam War; they were made in significant numbers. In

1133-506: A means of last resort against a possible attack by the Soviet Union. The military installation, along with a radar station at Lake Park, remained in use until 1969 when the Army closed them in an effort to reduce costs. The land was then sold to the city and became a top possible destination by Summerfest's early leaders, who worried for the fest's future after bad weather caused a poor turnout in its second year. Organizers believed that

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1236-466: A more appropriate name when the system was put into production. This never came to pass; the original Nike-X concept was replaced by a much more limited defense system known as the Sentinel program that used some of the same equipment. Nike-X was a response to the failure of the earlier Nike Zeus system. Zeus had been designed to face a few dozen Soviet ICBMs in the 1950s, and its design would mean it

1339-469: A much longer-ranged, collision-course system named Project Thumper , which eventually delivered the BOMARC missile . Bell Labs' proposal would have to deal with bombers flying at 500 mph (800 km/h) or more, at altitudes of up to 60,000 ft (20,000 m). At these speeds, even a supersonic rocket is no longer fast enough to be simply aimed at the target. The missile must "lead" the target to ensure

1442-816: A number of studies carried out between 1965 and 1967 examined a variety of scenarios where a limited number of interceptors might still be militarily useful. Among these, the I-67 concept suggested building a lightweight defense against very limited attacks. When the Chinese exploded their first H-bomb in 1967, I-67 was promoted as a defense against a Chinese attack, and this system became Sentinel in October. Nike-X development, in its original form, ended. The figures do not include approximately 1 billion dollars for research and development, paid to Western Electric. Total cost to Army: 1,545.1 Soviet development of ICBMs decreased

1545-400: A physical panel with connectors or, in more modern systems, as a software interface that allows virtual management of signal connections and routes. Output devices in analog machines can vary depending on the specific goals of the system. For example, they could be graphical indicators, oscilloscopes , graphic recording devices, TV connection module , voltmeter , etc. These devices allow for

1648-533: A single plug on the warhead from the "Safe Plug" to "Surface to Air" or "Surface to Surface" and a range setting in the TRR. The Nike Hercules was deployed starting in June 1958. First deployed to Chicago , 393 Hercules ground systems were manufactured. By 1960 ARADCOM had 88 Hercules batteries and 174 Ajax batteries, defending 23 zones across 30 states. Peak deployment was in 1963 with 134 Hercules batteries not including

1751-485: A top speed in excess of 3,000 mph (4,800 km/h) and a maximum altitude of around 150,000 ft (30 km). It had solid fuel boost and sustainer rocket motors. The boost phase was four of the Nike Ajax boosters strapped together. In the 70's some (foreign)users replaced vacuum tube guidance circuits in the missile with more reliable solid-state components but electron tube circuits were still used well into

1854-447: A very fast, short-range missile known as Sprint . Large numbers would be clustered near potential targets, allowing successful interception right up to the last few seconds of the warhead's re-entry. They would operate below the altitude where decoys or explosions had any effect. Nike-X also used a new radar system that could track hundreds of objects at once, allowing salvoes of many Sprints. It would require dozens of missiles to overwhelm

1957-417: A very wide range of complexity. Slide rules and nomograms are the simplest, while naval gunfire control computers and large hybrid digital/analog computers were among the most complicated. Complex mechanisms for process control and protective relays used analog computation to perform control and protective functions. Analog computers were widely used in scientific and industrial applications even after

2060-444: A voltage on a particular wire). Therefore, each problem must be scaled so its parameters and dimensions can be represented using voltages that the circuit can supply —e.g., the expected magnitudes of the velocity and the position of a spring pendulum . Improperly scaled variables can have their values "clamped" by the limits of the supply voltage. Or if scaled too small, they can suffer from higher noise levels . Either problem can cause

2163-430: Is a type of computation machine (computer) that uses physical phenomena such as electrical , mechanical , or hydraulic quantities behaving according to the mathematical principles in question ( analog signals ) to model the problem being solved. In contrast, digital computers represent varying quantities symbolically and by discrete values of both time and amplitude ( digital signals ). Analog computers can have

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2266-522: Is one of the few fields where slide rules are still in widespread use, particularly for solving time–distance problems in light aircraft. 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 AD 0 (that is, 1 BC) to AD 4000, keeping track of leap years and varying day length. The tide-predicting machine invented by Sir William Thomson in 1872

2369-513: Is striking in terms of mathematics. They can be modeled using equations of the same form. However, the difference between these systems is what makes analog computing useful. Complex systems often are not amenable to pen-and-paper analysis, and require some form of testing or simulation. Complex mechanical systems, such as suspensions for racing cars, are expensive to fabricate and hard to modify. And taking precise mechanical measurements during high-speed tests adds further difficulty. By contrast, it

2472-764: Is the PEAC (Practical Electronics analogue computer), published in Practical Electronics in the January 1968 edition. Another more modern hybrid computer design was published in Everyday Practical Electronics in 2002. An example described in the EPE hybrid computer was the flight of a VTOL aircraft such as the Harrier jump jet . The altitude and speed of the aircraft were calculated by

2575-497: Is to combine the two processes for the best efficiency. An example of such hybrid elementary device is the hybrid multiplier, where one input is an analog signal, the other input is a digital signal and the output is analog. It acts as an analog potentiometer, upgradable digitally. This kind of hybrid technique is mainly used for fast dedicated real time computation when computing time is very critical, as signal processing for radars and generally for controllers in embedded systems . In

2678-405: Is very inexpensive to build an electrical equivalent of a complex mechanical system, to simulate its behavior. Engineers arrange a few operational amplifiers (op amps) and some passive linear components to form a circuit that follows the same equations as the mechanical system being simulated. All measurements can be taken directly with an oscilloscope . In the circuit, the (simulated) stiffness of

2781-507: The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty signed during 1972, and further budget reduction, almost all Nike sites in the continental United States were deactivated by April 1974. Some units remained active until the later part of that decade in a coastal air defense role. These trucks and trailers were used with the Nike system. By 1958, the Army deployed nearly 200 Nike Ajax batteries at 40 "Defense Areas" within

2884-732: The Homestead AFB /Miami Defense Area, those starting with NY were in the New York Defense Area, and so forth. As an example Nike Site SF-88L refers to the launcher area (L) of the battery located in the northwestern part (88) of the San Francisco Defense Area (SF). During the early-to-mid-1960s the Nike Ajax batteries were upgraded to the Hercules system. The new missiles had greater range and destructive power, so about half as many batteries provided

2987-577: The Nike Hercules missile and NASA 's Nike Smoke rocket , used for upper-atmosphere research. Project Nike began during 1944 when the War Department demanded a new air defense system to combat new jet aircraft , as existing gun-based systems proved largely incapable of dealing with the speeds and altitudes at which jet aircraft operated. Two proposals were accepted. Bell Laboratories offered Project Nike while General Electric proposed

3090-465: The spring constant and g {\displaystyle g} the gravity of Earth . For analog computing, the equation is programmed as y ¨ = − d m y ˙ − c m y − g {\displaystyle {\ddot {y}}=-{\tfrac {d}{m}}{\dot {y}}-{\tfrac {c}{m}}y-g} . The equivalent analog circuit consists of two integrators for

3193-489: The "Direct Analogy Electric Analog Computer" ("the largest and most impressive general-purpose analyzer facility for the solution of field problems") developed there by Gilbert D. McCann, Charles H. Wilts, and Bart Locanthi . Educational analog computers illustrated the principles of analog calculation. The Heathkit EC-1, a $ 199 educational analog computer, was made by the Heath Company, US c.  1960 . It

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3296-465: The 1950s to the 1970s, general-purpose analog computers were the only systems fast enough for real time simulation of dynamic systems, especially in the aircraft, military and aerospace field. In the 1960s, the major manufacturer was Electronic Associates of Princeton, New Jersey , with its 231R Analog Computer (vacuum tubes, 20 integrators) and subsequently its EAI 8800 Analog Computer (solid state operational amplifiers, 64 integrators). Its challenger

3399-423: The 80's. The electron tube's resistance to EMP effects over earlier non EMP hardened solid state circuits played a major part in the retention of 'obsolete' technology until hardened circuits were developed. The missile also had an optional nuclear warhead to improve the ability to defend against mass formations. The W-31 warhead had four variants offering 2, 10, 20 and 30 kiloton yields. The 20 kt version

3502-650: The AN/GSS-1 Electronic Search Central with the AN/TPS-1D radar) searched for a target to be handed over to the Target Tracking Radar (TTR) for tracking. The Missile Tracking Radar (MTR) tracked the missile by way of a transponder , as the missile's radar signature alone was not sufficient. The MTR also commanded the missile by way of pulse-position modulation , the pulses were received, decoded and then amplified back for

3605-639: The Air Force during 1948. They merged their own long-range research with Project Thumper , while the Army continued to develop Nike. During 1950 the Army formed the Army Anti-Aircraft Command (ARAACOM) to operate batteries of anti-aircraft guns and missiles. ARAACOM was renamed the US Army Air Defense Command (USARADCOM) during 1957. It adopted a simpler acronym, ARADCOM, in 1961. The first successful Nike test

3708-606: The Army National Guard began to replace their guns and adopt the Ajax system. Each launch site had three parts, separated by at least 1,000 yards (914 m). One part (designated C) of about six acres (24,000 m ) contained the IFC (Integrated Fire Control) radar systems to detect incoming targets (acquisition and target tracking) and direct the missiles (missile tracking), along with the computer systems to plot and direct

3811-548: The Cold War. The early Summerfest Grounds consisted of little more than concrete blocks with wooden slabs placed on top to serve as stages, in the middle of a grassy, muddy field. Despite this, the central location was key to the festival's success, ensuring the existence and expansion of the grounds. Construction continued through the 1970s and 1980s, with the highlight of the creation of the Marcus Amphitheater ,

3914-661: The Dumaresq were produced of increasing complexity as development proceeded. By 1912, Arthur Pollen had developed an electrically driven mechanical analog computer for fire-control systems , based on the differential analyser. It was used by the Imperial Russian Navy in World War I . Starting in 1929, AC network analyzers were constructed to solve calculation problems related to electrical power systems that were too large to solve with numerical methods at

4017-465: The Launch Area, depending upon site configuration, obstructions, and the availability of land. The Launch Area provided for the maintenance, storage, testing, and firing of the Nike missiles. The selection of this area was primarily influenced by the relatively large amount of land required, its suitability to extensive underground construction, and the need to maintain a clear line-of-sight between

4120-547: The MTR to track. Once the tracking radars were locked the system was able to work automatically following launch, barring any unexpected occurrences. The computer compared the two radars' directions, along with information on the speeds and distances, to calculate the intercept point and steer the missile. The entirety of this system was provided by the Bell System's electronics firm, Western Electric . The Douglas -built missile

4223-497: The US Army Hercules batteries deployed in Germany, Greece, Greenland, Italy, Korea, Okinawa, Taiwan, and Turkey. In 1961, SAC and the U.S. Army began a joint training mission with benefits for both parties. SAC needed fresh (simulated) targets which the cities ringed by Nike/Hercules sites provided, and the Army needed live targets to acquire and track with their radar. SAC had many Radar Bomb Scoring (RBS) sites across

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4326-662: The United States (including Alaska and Hawaii) in which Project Nike missiles were deployed. Within each Defense Area, a "Ring of Steel" was developed with a series of Nike Integrated Firing and Launch Sites constructed by the Corps of Engineers. The deployment was designed to initially supplement and then replace gun batteries deployed around the nation's major urban areas and vital military installations. The defense areas consisted of major cities and selected United States Air Force Strategic Air Command bases which were deemed vital to national defense. The original basing strategy projected

4429-425: The United States' first operational anti-aircraft missile system, the Nike Ajax , in 1953. A great number of the technologies and rocket systems used for developing the Nike Ajax were re-used for a number of functions, many of which were given the "Nike" name (after Nike , the goddess of victory from Greek mythology ). The missile's first-stage solid rocket booster became the basis for many types of rocket including

4532-428: The advent of digital computers, because at the time they were typically much faster, but they started to become obsolete as early as the 1950s and 1960s, although they remained in use in some specific applications, such as aircraft flight simulators , the flight computer in aircraft , and for teaching control systems in universities. Perhaps the most relatable example of analog computers are mechanical watches where

4635-598: The aircrews. The results of these bomb runs were used to promote or demote air crews. ECM activity also took place between the bombers and the Nike sites. The performance of the NIKE crews improved remarkably with this "live target" practice. Many Nike Hercules batteries were manned by Army National Guard troops, with a single active Army officer assigned to each battalion to account for the unit's nuclear warheads. The National Guard air defense units shared responsibility for defense of their assigned area with active Army units in

4738-568: The analog computer readout was limited chiefly by the precision of the readout equipment used, generally three or four significant figures. (Modern digital simulations are much better in this area. Digital arbitrary-precision arithmetic can provide any desired degree of precision.) However, in most cases the precision of an analog computer is absolutely sufficient given the uncertainty of the model characteristics and its technical parameters. Many small computers dedicated to specific computations are still part of industrial regulation equipment, but from

4841-679: The analog part of the computer and sent to a PC via a digital microprocessor and displayed on the PC screen. In industrial process control , analog loop controllers were used to automatically regulate temperature, flow, pressure, or other process conditions. The technology of these controllers ranged from purely mechanical integrators, through vacuum-tube and solid-state devices, to emulation of analog controllers by microprocessors. The similarity between linear mechanical components, such as springs and dashpots (viscous-fluid dampers), and electrical components, such as capacitors , inductors , and resistors

4944-403: The area, and reported to the active Army chain of command. This is the only known instance of Army National Guard units being equipped with operational nuclear weapons. Development continued, producing Improved Nike Hercules and then Nike Zeus A and B. The Zeus was aimed at intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). Zeus, with a new 400,000 lbf (1.78 MN) thrust solid-fuel booster,

5047-407: The circuit to produce an incorrect simulation of the physical system. (Modern digital simulations are much more robust to widely varying values of their variables, but are still not entirely immune to these concerns: floating-point digital calculations support a huge dynamic range , but can suffer from imprecision if tiny differences of huge values lead to numerical instability .) The precision of

5150-466: The continental United States until 1974. The Alaskan sites were deactivated in 1978 and Florida sites stood down during the following year. Although the missile left the U.S. inventory, other nations maintained the missiles in their inventories into the early 1990s and sent their soldiers to the United States to conduct live-fire exercises at Fort Bliss, Texas. Leftover traces of the approximately 265 Nike missile bases can still be seen around cities across

5253-434: The continuous and periodic rotation of interlinked gears drives the second, minute and hour needles in the clock. More complex applications, such as aircraft flight simulators and synthetic-aperture radar , remained the domain of analog computing (and hybrid computing ) well into the 1980s, since digital computers were insufficient for the task. This is a list of examples of early computation devices considered precursors of

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5356-478: The country which had very similar acquisition and tracking radar, plus similar computerized plotting boards which were used to record the bomber tracks and bomb release points. Airmen from these sites were assigned TDY to Nike sites across the country to train the Nike crews in RBS procedures. The distances from the simulated bomb landing point and the "target" were recorded on paper, measured, encoded, and transmitted to

5459-596: The country. As the sites were decommissioned they were first offered to federal agencies. Many were already on Army National Guard bases who continued to use the property. Others were offered to state and local governments while others were sold to school districts. The left-overs were offered to private individuals. Thus, many Nike sites are now municipal yards, communications and FAA facilities (the IFC areas), probation camps, and even renovated for use as Airsoft gaming and MilSim training complexes. Several were obliterated and turned into parks. Some are now private residences. Only

5562-515: The early 1970s, analog computer manufacturers tried to tie together their analog computers with a digital computers to get the advantages of the two techniques. In such systems, the digital computer controlled the analog computer, providing initial set-up, initiating multiple analog runs, and automatically feeding and collecting data. The digital computer may also participate to the calculation itself using analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters . The largest manufacturer of hybrid computers

5665-432: The equation m y ¨ + d y ˙ + c y = m g {\displaystyle m{\ddot {y}}+d{\dot {y}}+cy=mg} , with y {\displaystyle y} as the vertical position of a mass m {\displaystyle m} , d {\displaystyle d} the damping coefficient , c {\displaystyle c}

5768-427: The intercept. The second part (designated L), around forty acres (160,000 m ), held 1–3 underground missile magazines each serving a group of four launch assemblies and included a safety zone. The site had a crew of 109 officers and men who ran the site continuously. One launcher would be on 15 minutes alert, two on 30 minutes and one on two hour alert. The third part was the administrative area (designated A), which

5871-468: The larger size of the Nike Hercules, an underground magazine's capacity was reduced to eight missiles. Thus, storage racks, launcher rails, and elevators underwent modification to accept the larger missiles. Two additional features that readily distinguished newly converted sites were the double fence and the kennels housing dogs that patrolled the perimeter between the two fences. The Nike Hercules

5974-530: The mathematical understanding of the Gibbs phenomenon of overshoot in Fourier representation near discontinuities. 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 the 1920s, Vannevar Bush and others developed mechanical differential analyzers. The Dumaresq

6077-465: The missile could be pushed manually along a railing to a launcher placed parallel to the elevator. Typically, four launchers sat atop the magazine. Near the launchers, a trailer housed the launch control officer and the controls he operated to launch missiles. In addition to the launch control trailer, the launch area contained a generator building with three diesel generators, frequency converters, and missile assembly and maintenance structures. Because of

6180-519: The missile to help ensure a lethal hit. The missile's limited range was seen by critics as a serious flaw, because it often meant that the missile had to be situated very close to the area it was protecting. Consolidated Western Steel produced the launcher loaders. Fruehauf Trailer Corporation produced the trailers. After disputes between the Army and the Air Force (see the Key West Agreement ), all longer-range systems were assigned to

6283-482: The missiles in the Launch Area and the missile-tracking-radar in the Battery Control Area. The first Nike sites featured above-ground launchers. This quickly changed as land restrictions forced the Army to construct space-saving underground magazines. Capable of hosting 12 Nike Ajax missiles, each magazine had an elevator that lifted the missile to the surface in a horizontal position. Once above ground,

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6386-414: The modern computers. Some of them may even have been dubbed 'computers' by the press, though they may fail to fit modern definitions. The Antikythera mechanism , a type of device used to determine the positions of heavenly bodies known as an orrery , was described as an early mechanical analog computer by British physicist, information scientist, and historian of science Derek J. de Solla Price . It

6489-433: The northeast and east, those numbered 26 to 50 were to the southeast and south, those numbered 51 to 75 were to the southwest and west, and those numbered 76 to 99 were to the northwest and north. The Defense Areas in the Continental United States were identified by a one- or two-letter code which were related to the city name. Thus those Nike sites starting with C were in the Chicago Defense Area, those starting with HM were in

6592-561: The patch panel, various connections and routes can be set and switched to configure the machine and determine signal flows. This allows users to flexibly configure and reconfigure the analog computing system to perform specific tasks. Patch panels are used to control data flows , connect and disconnect connections between various blocks of the system, including signal sources, amplifiers, filters, and other components. They provide convenience and flexibility in configuring and experimenting with analog computations. Patch panels can be presented as

6695-670: The period 1930–1945 in the Netherlands, Johan van Veen developed an analogue computer to calculate and predict tidal currents when the geometry of the channels are changed. Around 1950, this idea was developed into the Deltar , a hydraulic analogy computer supporting the closure of estuaries in the southwest of the Netherlands (the Delta Works ). The FERMIAC was an analog computer invented by physicist Enrico Fermi in 1947 to aid in his studies of neutron transport. Project Cyclone

6798-407: The planners chose fixed sites well away from the defended area and the Corps of Engineers Real Estate Offices began seeking tracts of land in rural areas. However, Army planners determined that close-in perimeter sites would provide enhanced firepower. Staggering sites between outskirt and close-in locations to urban areas gave defenders a greater defense-in-depth capability. Each Nike missile battery

6901-478: The possible construction of such calculators, but he had been stymied by the limited output torque of the ball-and-disk integrators . Several systems followed, notably those of Spanish engineer Leonardo Torres Quevedo , who built various analog machines for solving real and complex roots of polynomials ; and Michelson and Stratton, whose Harmonic Analyser performed Fourier analysis, but using an array of 80 springs rather than Kelvin integrators. This work led to

7004-405: The potentiometer was then equivalent to the formula of the equation being solved. Multiplication or division could be performed, depending on which dials were inputs and which was the output. Accuracy and resolution was limited and a simple slide rule was more accurate. However, the unit did demonstrate the basic principle. Analog computer designs were published in electronics magazines. One example

7107-571: The project was canceled in favor of the Thor based Program 437 system during 1966. In the end, neither development would enter service. However, the Nike Zeus system did demonstrate a hit-to-kill capability against ballistic missiles during the early 1960s. See National Missile Defense and anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems. Nike Hercules was included in SALT I discussions as an ABM. Following

7210-610: The same defensive capability. Regular Army batteries were either upgraded to the Hercules system or decommissioned. Army National Guard units continued to use the Ajax system until 1964, when they too upgraded to Hercules. Eventually, the Regular Army units were replaced by the National Guard as a cost-saving measure, since the Guard units could return to their homes when off duty. A Nike Ajax missile accidentally exploded at

7313-730: The speed of analog computers was their fully parallel computation, but this was also a limitation. The more equations required for a problem, the more analog components were needed, even when the problem wasn't time critical. "Programming" a problem meant interconnecting the analog operators; even with a removable wiring panel this was not very versatile. While a wide variety of mechanisms have been developed throughout history, some stand out because of their theoretical importance, or because they were manufactured in significant quantities. Most practical mechanical analog computers of any significant complexity used rotating shafts to carry variables from one mechanism to another. Cables and pulleys were used in

7416-445: The spring, for instance, can be changed by adjusting the parameters of an integrator. The electrical system is an analogy to the physical system, hence the name, but it is much less expensive than a mechanical prototype, much easier to modify, and generally safer. The electronic circuit can also be made to run faster or slower than the physical system being simulated. Experienced users of electronic analog computers said that they offered

7519-411: The state variables − y ˙ {\displaystyle -{\dot {y}}} (speed) and y {\displaystyle y} (position), one inverter, and three potentiometers. Electronic analog computers have drawbacks: the value of the circuit's supply voltage limits the range over which the variables may vary (since the value of a variable is represented by

7622-621: The system. Nike-X considered retaining the longer range Zeus missile, and later developed an extended range version known as Zeus EX . It played a secondary role in the Nike-X system, intended primarily for use in areas outside the Sprint protected regions. Nike-X required at least one interceptor missile to attack each incoming warhead. As the USSR's missile fleet grew, the cost of implementing Nike-X began to grow as well. Looking for lower-cost options,

7725-560: The target is hit before the missile depletes its fuel. This means that the missile and target cannot be tracked by a single radar, increasing the complexity of the system. By this point, the US had considerable experience with lead-calculating analog computers , starting with the British Kerrison Predictor and a series of increasingly capable U.S. designs. For Nike, three radars were used. The acquisition radar (such as

7828-503: The time. These were essentially scale models of the electrical properties of the full-size system. Since network analyzers could handle problems too large for analytic methods or hand computation, they were also used to solve problems in nuclear physics and in the design of structures. More than 50 large network analyzers were built by the end of the 1950s. World War II era gun directors , gun data computers , and bomb sights used mechanical analog computers. In 1942 Helmut Hölzer built

7931-420: The value of the Nike (aircraft) air defense system. Beginning around 1965, the number of Nike batteries was reduced. Thule air defense was reduced during 1965 and SAC air base defense during 1966, reducing the number of batteries to 112. Budgetary cuts reduced that number to 87 in 1968, and 82 in 1969. Some small-scale work to use Nike Zeus as an anti-satellite weapon (ASAT) was carried out from 1962 until

8034-470: The visualization of analog signals and the representation of the results of measurements or mathematical operations. These are just general blocks that can be found in a typical analog computing machine. The actual configuration and components may vary depending on the specific implementation and the intended use of the machine. Analog computing devices are fast; digital computing devices are more versatile and accurate. The idea behind an analog-digital hybrid

8137-497: The warhead damage. Nike Hercules batteries at SAC bases and in Hawaii were installed in an outdoor configuration. In Alaska, a unique above-ground shelter configuration was provided for batteries guarding Anchorage and Fairbanks. Local Corps of Engineer Districts supervised the conversion of Nike Ajax batteries and the construction of new Nike Hercules batteries. Nike missiles remained deployed around strategically important areas within

8240-537: Was Electronic Associates . Their hybrid computer model 8900 was made of a digital computer and one or more analog consoles. These systems were mainly dedicated to large projects such as the Apollo program and Space Shuttle at NASA , or Ariane in Europe, especially during the integration step where at the beginning everything is simulated, and progressively real components replace their simulated parts. Only one company

8343-660: Was Applied Dynamics of Ann Arbor, Michigan . Although the basic technology for analog computers is usually operational amplifiers (also called "continuous current amplifiers" because they have no low frequency limitation), in the 1960s an attempt was made in the French ANALAC computer to use an alternative technology: medium frequency carrier and non dissipative reversible circuits. In the 1970s, every large company and administration concerned with problems in dynamics had an analog computing center, such as: An analog computing machine consists of several main components: On

8446-498: Was a mechanical calculating device invented around 1902 by Lieutenant John Dumaresq of the Royal Navy . It was an analog computer that related vital variables of the fire control problem to the movement of one's own ship and that of a target ship. It was often used with other devices, such as a Vickers range clock to generate range and deflection data so the gun sights of the ship could be continuously set. A number of versions of

8549-406: Was a two-stage missile using a solid fuel booster stage and a liquid fueled ( IRFNA / UDMH ) second stage . The missile could reach a maximum speed of 1,000 mph (1,600 km/h), an altitude of 70,000 ft (21 km) and had a range of 25 miles (40 km). The missile contained an unusual three part payload , with explosive fragmentation charges at three points down the length of

8652-465: Was an analog computer developed by Reeves in 1950 for the analysis and design of dynamic systems. Project Typhoon was an analog computer developed by RCA in 1952. It consisted of over 4,000 electron tubes and used 100 dials and 6,000 plug-in connectors to program. The MONIAC Computer was a hydraulic analogy of a national economy first unveiled in 1949. Computer Engineering Associates was spun out of Caltech in 1950 to provide commercial services using

8755-420: Was created that year, and found some success, being held in 35 different locations. The next year, however, was inundated with horrific weather, forcing cancellation of the last day and ensuring financial losses for that year. In 1970 a central location was decided upon: an abandoned strip of land along the lakefront in the downtown area, which was the former Maitland Airport and served as a Nike missile site during

8858-582: Was deployed first at Fort Meade, Maryland during December 1953. A further 240 launch sites were built up to 1962. They replaced 896 radar-guided anti-aircraft guns , operated by the National Guard or Army to protect certain key sites. This left a handful of 75 mm Skysweeper emplacements as the only anti-aircraft artillery remaining in use by the US. By 1957 the Regular Army AAA units had been replaced by missile battalions. During 1958

8961-481: Was designed to defend Minuteman ICBMs, and which was also based on the Nike-X system. It became operational in 1975, but was shut down after just three months. Nike-X was a proposed US Army anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system designed to protect major cities in the United States from attacks by the Soviet Union 's ICBM fleet. The name referred to its experimental basis, it was intended to be replaced by

9064-432: Was designed to use existing Nike Ajax facilities. With the greater range of the Nike Hercules allowing for wider area coverage, numerous Nike Ajax batteries were permanently deactivated. In addition, sites located further away from target areas were desirable due to the nuclear warheads carried by the missile. Unlike the older Ajax sites, these batteries were placed in locations that optimized the missiles' range and minimized

9167-685: 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, 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 . Aviation

9270-687: Was discovered in 1901, in the Antikythera wreck off the Greek island of Antikythera , between Kythera and Crete , and has been dated to c.  150~100 BC , during the Hellenistic period . Devices of a level of complexity comparable to that of the Antikythera mechanism would not reappear until a thousand years later. Many mechanical aids to calculation and measurement were constructed for astronomical and navigation use. The planisphere

9373-416: Was divided into two basic parcels: the Battery Control Area and the Launch Area. The Battery Control Area contained the radar and computer equipment. Housing and administration buildings, including the mess hall, barracks, and recreation facilities, were sometimes located in a third parcel of land. More likely, however, the housing and administration buildings were located at either the Battery Control Area or

9476-409: Was during November 1951, intercepting a drone B-17 Flying Fortress . The first type, Nike Ajax (MIM-3), were deployed starting in 1953. The Army initially ordered 1,000 missiles and 60 sets of equipment. They were placed to protect strategic and tactical sites within the US. As a last-line of defense from air attack, they were positioned to protect cities as well as military installations. The missile

9579-556: Was first described by Ptolemy in the 2nd century AD. The astrolabe was invented in the Hellenistic world in either the 1st or 2nd centuries BC 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 . 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,

9682-529: Was first test launched during August 1959 and demonstrated a top speed of 8,000 mph (12,875 km/h). The Nike Zeus system utilized the ground-based Zeus Acquisition Radar (ZAR), a significant improvement over the Nike Hercules HIPAR guidance system. Shaped like a pyramid, the ZAR featured a Luneburg lens receiver aerial weighing about 1,000 tons. The first successful intercept of an ICBM by Zeus

9785-532: Was in 1962, at Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands . Despite its technological advancements, the Department of Defense terminated Zeus development in 1963. The Zeus system, which cost an estimated $ 15 billion , still suffered from several technical flaws that were believed to be uneconomical to overcome. Still, the Army continued to develop an anti-ICBM weapon system referred to as "Nike-X" – that

9888-414: Was known as offering general commercial computing services on its hybrid computers, CISI of France, in the 1970s. The best reference in this field is the 100,000 simulation runs for each certification of the automatic landing systems of Airbus and Concorde aircraft. After 1980, purely digital computers progressed more and more rapidly and were fast enough to compete with analog computers. One key to

9991-626: Was largely based on the technological advances of the Zeus system. Nike-X featured phased-array radars, computer advances, and a missile tolerant of skin temperatures three times those of the Zeus. In September 1967, the Department of Defense announced the deployment of the LIM-49A Spartan missile system, its major elements drawn from Nike X development. In March 1969. the Army started the anti-ballistic missile Safeguard Program , which

10094-496: Was largely useless by mid-1960s when it would be facing hundreds. It was calculated that a salvo of only four ICBMs would have a 90% chance of hitting the Zeus base, as their radars could only track a few warheads at the same time. Worse, the attacker could use radar reflectors or high-altitude nuclear explosions to obscure the warheads until they were too close to attack, making a single warhead attack highly likely to succeed. Nike-X addressed these concerns by basing its defense on

10197-409: 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 the integration. In 1876 James Thomson had already discussed

10300-441: Was programmed using patch cords that connected nine operational amplifiers and other components. General Electric also marketed an "educational" analog computer kit of a simple design in the early 1960s consisting of two transistor tone generators and three potentiometers wired such that the frequency of the oscillator was nulled when the potentiometer dials were positioned by hand to satisfy an equation. The relative resistance of

10403-548: Was the principal computer in the Mk. 56 Gun Fire Control System. Online, there is a remarkably clear illustrated reference (OP 1140) that describes the fire control computer mechanisms. For adding and subtracting, precision miter-gear differentials were in common use in some computers; the Ford Instrument Mark I Fire Control Computer contained about 160 of them. Integration with respect to another variable

10506-459: Was used in the Hercules system. At sites in the United States the missile almost exclusively carried a nuclear warhead. Sites in foreign nations typically had a mix of high explosive and nuclear warheads. The fire control of the Nike system was also improved with the Hercules and included a surface-to-surface mode which was successfully tested in Alaska. The mode change was accomplished by changing

10609-601: Was usually co-located with the IFC and contained the battery headquarters, barracks, mess, recreation hall, and motor pool. The actual configuration of the Nike sites differed depending on geography. Whenever possible the sites were placed on existing military bases or National Guard armories; otherwise land had to be purchased. The Nike batteries were organized in Defense Areas and placed around population centers and strategic locations such as long-range bomber bases, nuclear plants, and (later) ICBM sites. The Nike sites in

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