HP PA-RISC and Navy TAC

TAC4
TAC-4, HP Professional 1995

During the 1980s and 1990s, HP held several framework contracts with the US Navy to supply industrial computers and workstations for military uses and tactical decision support. These were some of the largest commercial contracts won by HP at the time for its PA-RISC computers, which originally had technical engineering use cases.

HP was part of at least three (or four) programs and contracts with the US Navy that supplied HP 9000 Unix computers to the fleet, mostly for C3I or C4ISR:

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Desktop Tactical Computer (DTC-1) and JOTS

This formal relationship between HP and the US Navy for HP 9000 computers started with Desktop Tactical Computer (DTC-1), a program during the 1980s in which HP offered HP FOCUS-based HP 9000 520C computers (HP 9020C) that were widely deployed through the US Navy as part of both DTC and JOTS.

HP 9020C were pervasive in the 1980s throughout the navy, almost every tactical or fleet staff in the United States Navy had five or more HP 9000s, used for anti-submarine warfare, anti-air warfare, radar systems and communications. It apparently served on US nuclear submarines well into the 1990s.

HP 9000 520C were also part of the US Navy Joint Operational Tactical System (JOTS): Despite the fact that some naval leaders didn’t see the point of JOTS, at one time, almost every tactical or fleet staff in the United States Navy had five or more HP 9000s, often networked together. Some had the early projection systems for common displays. There was a sharing of the load, so to speak. The computers gave those that processed anti-submarine warfare what they wanted on one terminal while those involved with anti-air warfare processed on another computer. The technology that ensued included special interface boards capturing radar systems, communications systems and aircraft systems, many connected with fiber optics. — HP Computer Museum, Bill Reed

JOTS was also used on surface and subsurface combatants of the 1980s US Navy: The joint operational tactical system (JOTS) [...] is basically a micro-computer ’battle management’ system. This system, requiring 4.5 megabytes or random access memory and 55 plus megabytes of hard disc storage capability, consists mainly or programs integrated in an existing shipboard computer — in most cases in the Hewlett Packard 9020 computer. It has also been tried in the HP 9050s and 850s. The system is installed on many surface combatants and in fact is on all surface units of the battle group containing the attack carrier SARATOGA. It is also installed in supporting ship and shore based command centers, at certain Navy intelligence sources and at meteorological centers. — A SUBMARINE OPERATIONAL TACTICAL SYSTEM (1988)

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Tactical Advanced Computer (TAC-3)

TAC-3
TAC-3, 1994

After losing the follow-on DTC-2 contract to Sun in the late-1980s (SPARC-based Sun 4 VME computers), HP again was part of the Tactical Advanced Computer TAC-3 and TAC-4 programs in the early to mid-1990s, and supplied a large range of PA-RISC computers for various uses to the US Navy for its vessels.

TAC-3 included, for mission support and tactical use cases, HP Apollo and HP 9000 400 workstations (CISC, Motorola 68000-based) and HP 9000 720, 730 RISC workstations. HP 9000 720, 730 and 750 workstations were widely used by the US Navy through TAC-3 for a variety of military applications, including electronic intelligence gathering (ELINT).

HP 9000 735 were later included in TAC-3 for US Navy, possibly used as AN/TSQ-142 mission planning system (TEAMS) for the EA-6B electronic warfare aircraft, and the 755 workstations used in ATWCS, Advanced TOMAHAWK Weapons Control System, for cruise missiles (Tomahawk).

Operating systems under TAC-3 were possibly HP-UX 8.09 (B1) and HP-UX 9.09 (B1), NSA-certified.

In TAC-3, Hughes Data Systems was the (main?) contractor which maintained and provisioned computer systems including HP 9000, which changed with TAC-4.

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Tactical Advanced Computer (TAC-4)

TAC4
TAC-4, 1997

TAC-4, for which procurement started in 1993, was one of HP’s largest-ever federal contract at the time. As part of US Navy TAC-4, awarded in 1995 by Naval Information Systems Management Center (NISMC), HP supplied large selection of its powerful PA-RISC workstations, Unix software and infrastructure throughout the 1990s to the US Navy for military measurement and control, including for Desktop Tactical Advanced Computer (DTC):

HP 9000 712 workstations were widely used as TAC-4 Desktop Computer throughout the US Navy and on military vessels. Visualize J-Class workstations were latre offered as part of a technology refreshment of TAC-4 in 1996, together with D-Class and K-Class servers.

HP 9000 743i and 744 VME computers were used by the US Navy for tactical display and control applications, which included the AN/UYQ-70 workstation aboard US Navy surface and submarine vessels and surveillance aircraft. With third-party VME devices and systems integrations, HP 743i and 744 were connected with FDDI networking.

This included the Telos ACE VME Portable Workstation, which consisted of a HP 9000 743i VME computer in a rugged chassis with the portability and ruggedness necessary to support mobile command and communications.

TAC4 SAIC
SAIC TAC-4

For environments where standard workstations were not robust enough, HP contracted SAIC to produce a ruggedized MIL-SPEC portable workstation for the US Marine Corps: SAIC provided Contractor Engineering Technical Services (CETS) and hardware through HP’s TAC-4 contract. The hardware included ruggedized rack system, portable and rugged portable workstations such as the SAIC Galaxy, SAIC Talon (C4I, mission planning, and logistics support) and rugged TAC-4 racks, where SAIC built standards HP 9000 computers into rugged racks for shipborne installations (usually J210)

In 1995 and 1996, HP TAC-3 and TAC-4 computers passed an Operational Evaluation (OPEVAL) in which HP 9000 750, 755, 712 and J210 were tested and assessed to be used at sea in a GCCS compliant Command and Control system in US Navy ships of the George Washington Battlegroup (Operation Joint Endeavor).

HP supported HP-UX 10 (possibly 10.16), HP-UX 9.07 and BLS (HP-UX 9.09) on TAC-4 HP 9000 systems.

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TAC-JW

TAC-JW
TAC-JW

HP transitioned from TAC-4 to TAC-JW (tactical joint workstation) in the late-1990s, a blanket purchase agreement (BPA) for computers and IT products for the US Department of Defense, a procurement vehicle administered by the Navy. HP moved several TAC-4 products to TAC-JW, after TAC-4 expired in 2001, with prices of 26% off list-price.

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Further reading

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