Rediffusion TASC and ACCESS
Starting in 1988 Richard became involved in the development of TASC. Subsequently he become responsible for porting TASC to UNOS 8. In 1999 Zaretto was engaged by Thomson Training and Simulation (TTSL) to create the UNOS 9.3.3+ version of TASC to ensure year 2000 compliance.
We have associations and contracts with many of the original developers of these systems, and can therefore have expertise that other organisations sometimes lack.
We have performed upgrades and maintenance for GECapital Aviation Training, British Midland, Swiss Air Force, Alaska Airlines
Project List
- SWIFT Hardcopy Upgrades for GECAT and British Midland
- CRDS replacements, BAMF Emmen
- UNOS maintenance
- TASC enhancements, page modifications, GECAT, British Midland,
BAMF, Alaska Airlines, TT&SL
- ACCESS enhancements, GECAT
TASC and Access Hardcopy Upgrades
The Crisp Hardcopy System replaces the IOS hardcopy printer (such as Calcomp, Facit, or a video printer) with a COTS colour injet printer. We recommend Hewlett Packard printers, it is possible with modification to place one of these onboard.
SWIFT IOS CRDS Hardware Replacement
The SWIFT IOS System replaces aging Charles River Data Systems (CRDS) hardware with modern COTS (Commercial Off the Shelf) hardware. The system allows the existing hard-disks from a CRDS machine to be plugged in and immediately used, subject to interfacing requirements as follows.
Interfacing CRDS hardware to a COTS platform
The SCSI disks can be plugged into a suitable controller (we use Adaptec), sometimes a cable or adapter is required to connect from SCSI-2 or SCSI-3 physical connectors. With SCSI-2 and SCSI-3 the electrical interface and the software interface supports SCSI-1 (all Charles Rivers Disks are SCSI-1).
Unfortunately the old MFM and Interphase drives are incompatible
We recommend that data is copied off the UNOS disk onto the industry standard drives on the COTS platform. We do not recommend running with a CRDS disk due to performance and reliability implications.
The VME based hardware cards can be interfaced to a PCI bus, but again we do not recommend this. Also in our opinion this partly defeats the principles of upgrading to COTS hardware, as the Instruction Station will still be reliant on expensive vendor supported or unsupported hardware.
We recommend that the operating software is copied onto the COTS platform (usually via QIC-Tape) although it is possible to do this via serial comms (slow) or ethernet.
CRDS TASC and ACCESS Projects, Services and Skills
We are able to perform enhancements and maintenance. If there are any required software modifications to the UNOS system, TASC or the ACCESS system or pages then we have the skills to get the job done.