Fieldata

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Fieldata was a pioneering computer project run by the US Army Signal Corps in the late 1950s that intended to create a single standard for collecting and distributing battlefield information. In this respect it could be thought of as a generalization of the US Air Force's SAGE system that was being created at about the same time.

Unlike SAGE, Fieldata was intended to be much larger in scope, allowing information to be gathered from any number of sources and forms. Much of the Fieldata system was the specifications for the format the data would take, leading to a character set that would be a huge influence on ASCII a few years later. Fieldata also specified the message formats and even the electrical standards for connecting Fieldata-standard machines together.

Another part of the Fieldata project was the design and construction of computers at several different scales, from data-input terminals at one end, to theatre-wide data processing centers at the other. Several Fieldata-standard computers were built during the lifetime of the project, including the transportable MOBIDIC from Sylvania, and the BASICPAC and LOGICPAC from Philco. Another system, ARTOC, was intended to provide graphical output (in the form of photographic slides), but was never completed.

Because Fieldata did not specify codes for interconnection and data transmission control, different systems used different control functions. Intercommunication between them was difficult (Mackenzie, 64).

Fieldata is the original character set used internally in UNIVAC computers of the 1100 series, represented by the sixth of the 36-bit word of that computer. The direct successor to the UNIVAC 1100 is the Unisys 2200 series computers, which use Fieldata to this day (although ASCII is now also common with each character encoded in 1/4 of a word, or 9 bits).

The Fieldata project ran from 1956 until it was stopped during a reorganization in 1962.

[edit] Fieldata characters

 The following character set table may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please improve this table if you can.
Binary Decimal Octal Glyph Name
000 000 0 00 @ MasterSpace
000 001 1 01 [  
000 010 2 02 ]  
000 011 3 03 #  
000 100 4 04 Δ Delta
000 101 5 05   Blank
000 110 6 06 A  
000 111 7 07 B  
001 000 8 10 C  
001 001 9 11 D  
001 010 10 12 E  
001 011 11 13 F  
001 100 12 14 G  
001 101 13 15 H  
001 110 14 16 I  
001 111 15 17 J  
010 000 16 20 K  
010 001 17 21 L  
010 010 18 22 M  
010 011 19 23 N  
010 100 20 24 O  
010 101 21 25 P  
010 110 22 26 Q  
010 111 23 27 R  
011 000 24 30 S  
011 001 25 31 T  
011 010 26 32 U  
011 011 27 33 V  
011 100 28 34 W  
011 101 29 35 X  
011 110 30 36 Y  
011 111 31 37 Z  
Binary Decimal Octal Glyph Name
100 000 32 40 )                      
100 001 33 41 -  
100 010 34 42 +  
100 011 35 43 <  
100 100 36 44 =  
100 101 37 45 >  
100 110 38 46 &  
100 111 39 47 $  
101 000 40 50 *  
101 001 41 51 (  
101 010 42 52  %  
101 011 43 53  :  
101 100 44 54  ?  
101 101 45 55  !  
101 110 46 56 ,  
101 111 47 57 \  
110 000 48 60 0  
110 001 49 61 1  
110 010 50 62 2  
110 011 51 63 3  
110 100 52 64 4  
110 101 53 65 5  
110 110 54 66 6  
110 111 55 67 7  
111 000 56 70 8  
111 001 57 71 9  
111 010 58 72 '  
111 011 59 73  ;  
111 100 60 74 /  
111 101 61 75 .  
111 110 62 76 ¤ Lozenge
111 111 63 77 ≠  

[edit] References

  • Charles E. Mackenzie (1980). Coded Character Sets: History and Development. Addison-Wesley. 
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