Map projections speed SAC war-room display (Mar, 1963)

Map projections speed SAC war-room display

Less than 30 seconds elapses between receipt of information and the time it is flashed on a vast screen where it can be studied by the battle staff in the Strategic Air Command’s war room near Omaha, Nebr. The new system in the underground three-story, reinforced-concrete command post at Offutt Air Force Base works this way: The printed sheet with critical data on it is passed through a copying machine that transfers the data onto a plastic transparency. One of six projectors then projects this through an overlay map. The transparency film was developed by Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Co.

Transparency projection replaces a system that required wheeling out of up to 40 8-by-20-foot plastic panels mounted on trolleys. Data had to be transcribed by hand. The same number of maps and charts on 10-by-10-inch overlays can now be kept in a file folder.

Related posts:

1. Lady Robot Used to Write Window Display Advertising (Nov, 1931)
2. Engineering hours turn into minutes when you speed up your data analysis (Sep, 1952)
3. Operating Room Goes to Battle in Tank-Towed Armored Trailer (Oct, 1941)
4. Panorama an a Giant Screen (Sep, 1949)
5. The Sea-Gem: a 100mph Air-Cushion Ship by 1963 (Mar, 1962)