HP PA-RISC and Navy TAC

TAC4
TAC-4, HP Professional 1995

During the 1980s and 1990s, HP was part of 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 PA-RISC computers.

HP was part of at least three (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, where HP offered HP FOCUS based HP 9000 520C computers (HP 9020C) that were widely deployed through the US Navy as part of 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)

After losing out to Sun with the DTC-2 contract, HP won the newer TAC-3 and TAC-4 programs in the early to mid-90s and supplied a large range of PA-RISC computers for various uses at the US Navy and its vessels.

Used in TAC-3 for mission support and tactical use cases were HP Apollo and/or HP 9000 400 workstations (CISC) and HP 9000 720, 730 workstations. The HP 9000 720, 730 and 750 were widely used by the US Navy in TAC-3 for a variety of military applications, including electronic intelligence gathering (ELINT).

The HP 9000 735 were apparently used by the US Navy as part of the TAC-3 (Tactical Advanced Computer) framework, possibly as AN/TSQ-142 mission planning system (TEAMS) for the EA-6B and the 755 used in ATWCS for cruise missiles (Tomahawk).

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Tactical Advanced Computer (TAC-4)

TAC-4, for which procurement started in 1993, was one of the company’s largest-ever federal contract at the time. As part of US Navy TAC-4, HP supplied PA-RISC workstations, software and infrastructure during the 1990s to the US Navy for measurement and control, including:

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

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

For environments where standard workstations were not robust enough, HP contracted SAIC to produce a ruggedized MIL-SPEC portable workstation for the Navy: the SAIC Galaxy 1100 based on HP 9000 712, built into a ruggedized case for portable military applications.

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Sources

Most HP documentation is only available at archive.org and other archives, with most official sources, articles and journals having disappeared in the 2010s.

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