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.

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). Because some of the fieldata characters are not represented in ASCII, the Unisys 2200 uses '^', '"' and '_' characters for codes 04, 076 and 077 (octal) respectively.

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

Fieldata characters

Supervisory Bit (1) Indicator Bits (2) Detail Bits (4) Binary Bits (7) Decimal Octal Glyph Name
0000000000000000@MasterSpace
0000001000000111[
0000010000001022]
0000011000001133#
0000100000010044ΔDelta
0000101000010155Blank
0000110000011066A
0000111000011177B
00010000001000810C
00010010001001911D
000101000010101012E
000101100010111113F
000110000011001214G
000110100011011315H
000111000011101416I
000111100011111517J
001000000100001620K
001000100100011721L
001001000100101822M
001001100100111923N
001010000101002024O
001010100101012125P
001011000101102226Q
001011100101112327R
001100000110002430S
001100100110012531T
001101000110102632U
001101100110112733V
001110000111002834W
001110100111012935X
001111000111103036Y
001111100111113137Z
010000001000003240)
010000101000013341-
010001001000103442+
010001101000113543<
010010001001003644=
010010101001013745>
010011001001103846&
010011101001113947$
010100001010004050*
010100101010014151(
010101001010104252 %
010101101010114353 :
010110001011004454 ?
010110101011014555 !
010111001011104656,
010111101011114757\
0110000011000048600
0110001011000149611
0110010011001050622
0110011011001151633
0110100011010052644
0110101011010153655
0110110011011054666
0110111011011155677
0111000011100056708
0111001011100157719
011101001110105872'
011101101110115973 ;
011110001111006074/
011110101111016175.
011111001111106276¤Lozenge
011111101111116377Not Equal
1000000100000064100Blank/Idle
1000001100000165101Control Upper Case
1000010100001066102Control Lower Case
1000011100001167103Control Tab
1000100100010068104Control Carriage Return
1000101100010169105Control Space
1000110100011070106a
1000111100011171107b
1001000100100072110c
1001001100100173111d
1001010100101074112e
1001011100101175113f
1001100100110076114g
1001101100110177115h
1001110100111078116i
1001111100111179117j
1010000101000080120k
1010001101000181121l
1010010101001082122m
1010011101001183123n
1010100101010084124o
1010101101010185125p
1010110101011086126q
1010111101011187127r
1011000101100088130s
1011001101100189131t
1011010101101090132u
1011011101101191133v
1011100101110092134w
1011101101110193135x
1011110101111094136y
1011111101111195137z
1100000110000096140Dial 0
1100001110000197141Dial 1
1100010110001098142Dial 2
1100011110001199143Dial 3
11001001100100100144Dial 4
11001011100101101145Dial 5
11001101100110102146Dial 6
11001111100111103147Dial 7
11010001101000104150Dial 8
11010011101001105151Dial 9
11010101101010106152Start of Control Block
11010111101011107153Start of Block
11011001101100108154Spare
11011011101101109155Spare
11011101101110110156Spare
11011111101111111157Spare
11100001110000112160Ready to Transmit
11100011110001113161Ready to Receive
11100101110010114162Not Ready to Receive
11100111110011115163End of Blockette
11101001110100116164End of Block
11101011110101117165End of File
11101101110110118166End of Control Block
11101111110111119167Acknowledge Receipt
11110001111000120170Repeat Block
11110011111001121171Spare
11110101111010122172Interpret Sign
11110111111011123173Non-Interpret Sign
11111001111100124174Control Word Follows
11111011111101125175S.A.C.
11111101111110126176Special Character
11111111111111127177Delete

References

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