Q32

AN/FSQ-32
Command, control, and coordination system
The USAF planned an underground "Super Combat Center" with AN/FSQ-32 in the Ottawa sector to be completed by August 1, 1962, for use as a Direction Center, but after the solid-state AN/FSQ-32 was cancelled, the underground bunker completed in 1963 was instead equipped with a vacuum tube AN/FSQ-7.
Planned for the	SAGE computer network
Location	23rd & Colorado Blvd, Santa Monica, California
- coordinates	34°10′40″N 118°28′25″W / 34.17778°N 118.47361°W / 34.17778; -118.47361
Hardware design	IBM Kingston Engineering
Prototype	Built 1960-1 Used until ~1970
- Planned	Complete hardened capability by 1 April 1964

External image

central processor (p. 2)

The AN/FSQ-32 SAGE Solid State Computer (AN/FSQ-7A before December 1958,colloq. "Q-32") was a planned military computer central for deployment to Super Combat Centers in nuclear bunkers and to some above-ground military installations. In 1958, Air Defense Command planned to acquire 13 Q-32 centrals for Air Divisions/Sectors at Ottawa, St Louis, San Antonio, Raleigh, Syracuse, Chicago, Spokane, Minot, Portland, Phoenix, Miami (above-ground), Albuquerque (above-ground), and Shreveport (above-ground). (During 1959 SAGE/FAA "boundary alignments", the total was reduced to 12.**)

In 1956, ARDC sponsored "development of a transistorized, or solid-state, computer" by IBM and when announced in June 1958, the planned "SAGE Solid State Computer...was estimated to have a computing capability of seven times" the AN/FSQ-7. ADC's November 1958 plan to field—by April 1964—the 13 solid state AN/FSQ-7A was for each to network "a maximum of 20 long-range radar inputs [40 LRI telephone lines] and a maximum dimension of just over 1000 miles in both north-south and east-west directions." "Low rate Teletype data" could be accepted on 32 telephone lines (e.g., from "Alert Network Number 1"). On 17 November 1958, CINCNORAD "decided to request the solid state computer and hardened facilities", and the remaining vacuum-tube AN/FSQ-8 centrals for combat centers were cancelled (one was retrofitted to function as an AN/FSQ-7).

"Each [sic] AN/FSQ-32 computer would be"* used:

"Air Defense and Air Traffic Control Integration" was planned for airways modernization after the USAF, CAA, and AMB agreed on August 22, 1958, to "collocate air route traffic control centers and air defense facilities" (e.g., jointly use some Air Route Surveillance Radars at SAGE radar stations). The May 22, 1959, agreement between the USAF, DoD, and FAA designated emplacement of ATC facilities "in the hardened structure of the nine U. S. SCC's", and SAGE Air Defense Sectors and FAA regions were to have coincident boundaries in a June 19, 1959, air defense plan used to create a new SAGE Implementation Schedule on July 1, 1959.