The Automatic Digital Network System, known as AUTODIN, is a

legacy In law, a legacy is something held and transferred to someone as their inheritance, as by will and testament. Personal effects, family property, marriage property or collective property gained by will of real property. Legacy or legacies may refer ...

data communications Data transmission and data reception or, more broadly, data communication or digital communications is the transfer and reception of data in the form of a digital bitstream or a digitized analog signal transmitted over a point-to-point or ...

service in the

United States Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national sec ...

. AUTODIN originally consisted of numerous AUTODIN Switching Centers (ASCs) located in the United States and in countries such as England and Japan.

Background

The design of the system, originally named "ComLogNet", began in 1958 by a team of

Western Union The Western Union Company is an American multinational financial services company, headquartered in Denver, Colorado. Founded in 1851 as the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company in Rochester, New York, the company cha ...

RCA The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...

and IBM. The customer was the

U.S. Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Sign ...

and the system's purpose was to improve the speed and reliability of logistics traffic (spare parts for missiles) between five

logistics center A logistics center, or depot, is a facility dedicated to logistical operations. A logistics center might be a warehouse, freight forwarder, or a repair depot. The United States Air Force (USAF) is serviced by three air logistics centers (also known ...

s and roughly 350 bases and contractor locations. An implementation contract was awarded in the fall of 1959 to Western Union as prime contractor and system integrator, RCA to build the 5 switching center computers and IBM for the compound terminals which provided for both IBM

punched card A punched card (also punch card or punched-card) is a piece of stiff paper that holds digital data represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions. Punched cards were once common in data processing applications or to di ...

and

Teletype A teleprinter (teletypewriter, teletype or TTY) is an electromechanical device that can be used to send and receive typed messages through various communications channels, in both point-to-point and point-to-multipoint configurations. Init ...

data entry. The first site became operational in 1962. During the implementation the government realized the broader value of the system and transferred it to the

Defense Communications Agency The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), known as the Defense Communications Agency (DCA) until 1991, is a United States Department of Defense (DoD) combat support agency composed of military, federal civilians, and contractors. DISA pro ...

(DCA) which renamed it "AUTODIN". In 1962 the government solicited competitive bids for a 9 center expansion which was won by

Philco Philco (an acronym for Philadelphia Battery Company) is an American electronics industry, electronics manufacturer headquartered in Philadelphia. Philco was a pioneer in battery, radio, and television production. In 1961, the company was purchased ...

-Ford. Deployment started in 1966. On March 22, 1968, Autodin multimedia terminal in Europe became operational at Ramstein Air base in Germany. This system linked more than 300 Air Forces bases, material areas, depots and other authorized agencies into a single communications network. In the ASCs; operational until the late 1980s the Philco-Ford OL9 computers were still in use with periodic technological updates. In the 1988 to 1990 timeframe an initiative by the Department of Defense for "off the shelf" hardware initiated a replacement of the Philco-Ford processors by DEC VAX 11/780 series systems. In 1982, a follow-on project, AUTODIN II, was terminated in favor of using

ARPANET The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the first wide-area packet-switched network with distributed control and one of the first networks to implement the TCP/IP protocol suite. Both technologies became the technical fou ...

technology for the

Defense Data Network The Defense Data Network (DDN) was a computer networking effort of the United States Department of Defense from 1983 through 1995. It was based on ARPANET technology. History As an experiment, from 1971 to 1977, the Worldwide Military Command a ...

(including a military subnet known as MILNET). AUTODIN Switching Centers have been replaced by various hardware/software combinations. The following are some examples: * A program called NOVA to operate circuits and route messages. The system is designed to run at 2400

baud In telecommunication and electronics, baud (; symbol: Bd) is a common unit of measurement of symbol rate, which is one of the components that determine the speed of communication over a data channel. It is the unit for symbol rate or modulat ...

, however speeds up to 9600 baud are possible. The system is able to run down to 15 baud if communications systems require it. * A series of hardware/software systems called DABS (DoDIIS Autodin Bypass System) which allows the transmission of messages over Serial connections at up to 9600 Baud as well as

TCP/IP The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the set of communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the su ...

connections that allow the transmission of messages across Ethernet connects at speeds limited only by the network bandwidth. In 1996, DoD decided to phase out AUTODIN by December 31, 1999. Early in the 21st century, all but one of the AUTODIN Switching Centers had been shut down. The intention is to transition secure messaging traffic to the

Defense Message System The Defense Message System or Defense Messaging System (DMS) is a deployment of secure electronic mail and directory services in the United States Department of Defense. DMS was intended to replace the AUTODIN network, and is based on implement ...

References

Wide area networks History of telecommunications in the United States Military communications Western Union {{US-mil-stub

Background

See also

References