[Milsurplus] Curious about Military Computers such as the AN/UYK-44

[KC5IJD]

Mark,

Additional data can be found under the AN/UYK-20(V) nomenclature which also 
appears on this computer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/UYK-20

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark J. Blair" <nf6x at nf6x.net>
To: "ArmyRadios Group Group" <armyradios at yahoogroups.com>; 
<milsurplus at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Sunday, July 28, 2013 12:36 PM
Subject: [Milsurplus] Curious about Military Computers such as the AN/UYK-44


>I stumbled over a listing for an AN/UYK-44 Data Processing Set on eBay the 
>other day. I made an offer on it which I'm certain will not be accepted, 
>but seeing the listing has made me curious about that computer and other 
>similar ones:
>
>    http://www.ebay.com/itm/230953556173
>
> From what little I've been able to gather, the AN/UYK-44 is a 16-bit 
> computer system made by Sperry Univac or whatever their name happened to 
> be at the time. I gather that the CPU is on a single VME card, based on a 
> paper I found describing a project to interface a UYK-44 to a UNIX 
> workstation. It's not clear to me whether the system shown in the eBay 
> listing contains a VME backplane with a single-board CPU unit inside, or 
> if the VME card UYK-44 is an alternate implementation of the computer. 
> Unfortunately, the eBay listing only includes a single photo of the front 
> panel of the system.
>
> I have found limited technical information online about this computer 
> system and other contemporary military computer platforms. Would any of 
> y'all happen to know if architectural information, instruction set 
> documentation, compilers/assemblers, or even simulators are freely 
> available for the UYK-44 or other such computers? Is the UYK-44 a 
> repackaged implementation of some other commercially available computer 
> system of its era? I think it's unlikely that I'll have an affordable 
> opportunity to add such a computer to my overstuffed collection of fun 
> junk, but I still wouldn't mind learning some more about them.