🚀 go-pugleaf

On Sun, 5 Aug 2001 20:53:49, ja...@jata-mj.net (Julian Thomas) wrote:

> My favorite 9020 story was about the day of the great blackout (was this
> 1965?) when earlier that day they had hooked up the UPS feature (it had a
> different name then), tested it, and then disconnected it again - before
> the blackout hit Poughkeepsie.

Oh, I understand now from Chuck F's post that you meant THAT blackout.  Not 
one the 9020 caused, one it responded--or failed to respond--to.

There was no UPS that was part of the 9020.  There were non-standard battery 
packs in each cabinet, as I recall, but I forget why, since FAA went to a lot 
of trouble to install critical power systems (AKA UPS) at each Center.  There 
had been diesel back-ups all along, but the switch from analog to digital 
equipment caused a need for uninterrupted power.

Perhaps there were batteries in the 9020 because the decision to procure an 
UPS was made after the 9020 was already specified; I don't recall but it 
sounds right.  The decision to replace the analog display system with an all 
digital system [1] was made after the 9020 was in procurement, and then the 
realization would have come that other equipment than just the 9020 needed an 
UPS.

[1] One of my career achievements was leading the effort at MITRE to convince 
the FAA to dump the analog radar displays.

-- 
    John Varela