[Pox]

Probably a civilian posing as a military tech. We were actually phasing in the BDU’s and Phasing out the old OD uniforms when I enlisted, so we mixed and matched on occasion as well, but never like him! :)

The TACFIRE was actually digital and only the printers were mechanical. The thermal printer was very interesting, but the plotter was really cool tech for its time.

The CPU and MEMORY units were enormous and the CPU was comprised of dozens of small IC’s that were encapsulated into a very large enclosure (Nothing like you would expect today), and the Memory was actually MCMU, which stands for Mass Core Memory Unit. They were tiny donut magnets with several wires running through them in a grid for each “Card”. Very EMP resistant and reliable for the era.

I believe I still have saved a box full of technical material for that system and all of the components, but I doubt it's even in use in this day and age as its day is long past.

The FALT/FADAC system was much more “primitive”, but technically not “mechanical” except for perhaps the tape drive which used a long paper “tape” with punch holes in it to load the “bios”. Very reliable, but very ancient compared to anything in use today.

So many memories...

[KarlInOhio]

and the Memory was actually MCMU, which stands for Mass Core Memory Unit. They were tiny donut magnets with several wires running through them in a grid for each “Card”.

8 bytes of core memory with an 8 gigabyte flash card sitting on top. I just dropped a whole $30 on 4 times that memory today.

[2ndDivisionVet]

We still had 1940’s era equipment in some cases when I was in, but I’m sure TACFIRE can only be seen in a museum.