Automatic Data-Accumulation System for Wind Tunnels

A new high-speed data-accumulation system has been designed for a supersonic wind tunnel. The data are recorded on punched paper tape for direct input into an Electrodata digital computer. Extensive presentation of data is available to the wind-tunnel operators. All data are typed by an electric typewriter, and an automatic plotting machine plots several of the data words as functions of the independent-variable data word. Special codes to control the computer are automatically punched into the tape. The preliminary source of the data may be either manually operated keyboards or shaft-position digitizers. The new system increases the wind-tunnel pace, eliminates intermediate data handling before computation, and lowers the cost of data reduction.