2 Aug
2012
2 Aug
'12
4:02 p.m.
On 2 Aug 2012 at 11:25, Jon Elson wrote:
Alden was the big maker of weather fax machines in the
1970-1980
range. The date on the plate indicates it was a 1984 NOAA contract and
the unit was built in 1987. I can't believe there was any TIROS
system operational at that time, I suspect the TIROS label was a
historical artifact in Alden's documentation, and that this system was
actually used to receive and print out GOES images. The GOES satellite
sent high bit rate data while the mirror swept the image of the earth,
then received a processed image from a ground station during the time
the mirror was sweeping space and relayed that to ground receiving
stations for printout. Ships at sea could print out weather maps in
near real time, for instance.
Well, if anyone's interested, please contact the guy. Those Omnibyte
CPUs and Matrox video are pretty nice, as is the big box with PSUs.
Otherwise, I suspect the guy will scrap it.
--Chuck