No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Weather Bureau has developed a specialized digital computer I for the Weather Bureau to use as a research tool in exploring the concept of the automatic weather station. The AMOS IV computer receives data from weather-sensing instruments and processes these data through such functions as sampling, comparing, selecting a maximum, and arithmetic operations. The results are transmitted via teletype to a central forecasting station and to other airport weather stations. Values of two quantities recently developed as aids to air safety--runway visual range and approach light contact height--are given by the machine through automatic table look-up.
For a number of years, the Weather Bureau has been appraising the possibilities of an automatic weather station. Such stations could be widely distributed, and would be especially useful in relatively inaccessible locations that are important sources of early data on meteorological activity. The various developmental prototypes of this concept have been called AMOS (Automatic Meteorological Observation Station); the current version, containing transistorized packages, is AMOS IV. This model was designed and built by Paul Meissner and J. A. Cunningham of the NBS data processing systems laboratory and by C. A. Kettering of the U. S. Weather Bureau. It is an outgrowth of previous work done by NBS for the Weather Bureau that resulted in a special computer 2 for processing cloud-height signals from a ceilometer. The ceilometer was intended for use with the AMOS III.
Several of the input quantities to the AMOS computers, such as cloud height and precipitation, cannot be satisfactorily represented by instantaneous values but must be time-averaged. Varying amounts of data processing must therefore be associated with the different instruments measuring these quantities. In the AMOS III concept, several complex units were required for these functions. Although many of the functions were similar, the hardware was not minimized because of a diversity of design that resulted from the isolated development of the individual units. Analysis of the over-aU system indicated that a considerable reduction could be made in hardware and therefore in maintenance.
In AMOS IV, the automatic weather station is built around a single small, general-purpose computer designed especially for this application.
π SIMILAR VOLUMES
Conductive flooring is as serviceable as nonconductive flooring of the same type, and it reduces explosion hazards, according to a recent National Bureau of Standards investigation ~ sponsored jointly by the Army, Navy, and Air Force. The Bureau also found that current methods for measuring the resi