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This RAAFIMDC FIA-18A was another milestone in weapon system development. It has 2 mission computers tied into all avionic systems via 3 redundant high speed busses. Though the FIA-18A represented the cutting edge in 1978 system technology and is to date unsurpassed, many of its early generation micro-processors are by now hopelessly obsolete.
Technology Explained
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Computer Technology
Part I
The Rise and Rise of the Microprocessor (1968 to 1986)
Computer technology has demonstrated over the past decades a growth in volume and rate of technological development which is unprecedented historically. This trend is unlikely to slacken, with an insatiable commercial market which has for some time outstripped the military as a buyer and user of the technological cutting edge.
The market for digital computers has been traditionally driven by performance per dollar, the dollar being split into maintenance, acquisition and software portability costs. Today’s array of high-performance microprocessors is a direct product of that environment offering substantial gains in performance, compactness, price and reliability against the minicomputers of the early seventies.
Judicious application of computer technology in weapon system design can offer dramatic gains in system capability, while substantially improving mission availability through reliability, redundancy and ease of implementing self-test and fault diagnostic capabilities. Poor application of computers on the other hand can result in marginal gains in capability with poor mission availability, increased operator workload and a nightmare of escalating hardware and software maintenance costs. Fear of the latter has been a major cause of the reappearance of the fifties ‘gunsight lobby’, calling for simple and cheap aircraft.
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