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Fieldata

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.

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

Fieldata characters

BinaryDecimalOctalGraphic Name 
000 000000@
000 001101[
000 010202]
000 011303#
000 100404ΔDelta
000 101505Blank
000 110606A
000 111707B
001 000810C
001 001911D
001 0101012E
001 0111113F
001 1001214G
001 1011315H
001 1101416I
001 1111517J
010 0001620K
010 0011721L
010 0101822M
010 0111923N
010 1002024O
010 1012125P
010 1102226Q
010 1112327R
011 0002430S
011 0012531T
011 0102632U
011 0112733V
011 1002834W
011 1012935X
011 1103036Y
011 1113137Z
BinaryDecimalOctalGraphic Name 
100 0003240)
100 0013341-
100 0103442+
100 0113543<
100 1003644=
100 1013745>
100 1103846&
100 1113947$
101 0004050*
101 0014151(
101 0104252%
101 0114353:
101 1004454?
101 1014555!
101 1104656,
101 1114757\\
110 00048600
110 00149611
110 01050622
110 01151633
110 10052644
110 10153655
110 11054666
110 11155677
111 00056708
111 00157719
111 0105872'
111 0115973;
111 1006074/
111 1016175.
111 1106276¤Lozenge
111 1116377