Comprehensive Display System

The Comprehensive Display System (CDS) was a command, control, and coordination system of the British Royal Navy (RN) that worked with the detection/search Type 984 radar. The system was installed on a total of six ships starting in 1957. The US Navy purchased a prototype CDS and produced twenty of their own version, the Electronic Data System (EDS). These were used on a number of ships until 1968. It was very nearly selected by the US Air Force as well, and some sources mention its use in Royal Air Force ground plotting.

The CDS allowed operators to assign objects on the radar display different IDs and combined them together onto a single display which allowed intercept officers to have a unified display of location, raid size, and altitude. The CDS made it easy for operators to vector friendly fighters onto intercept courses with unknown targets and later versions could automatically calculate the interception points. The basic idea of the CDS was extremely influential in military circles and led to computerized versions in the form of DATAR, Naval Tactical Data System, and SAGE.

The trackball (known as "ball tracker" at the time) was invented by Ralph Benjamin as part of his work for the CDS in 1946. The prototype, named roller ball, was patented in 1947, but kept as a secret inside the military. It laid the foundation to input devices such as the computer mouse. Production units used a joystick in place of the trackball.

In the post-war era, Elliott Brothers began concentrating on automation solutions for fire control, and on 1 December 1946 they began work on what would develop into the CDS. The initial idea was to collect ASDIC data on various targets from different ships in a task group and then produce a single unified view using a new display system that overlayed symbols on a large-format plan-position indicator (PPI) radar display. Elliott received a patent for this "Peevish" system in 1947.

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