Automatic Digital Network

The Automatic Digital Network System ( ADNS or AUTODIN ) was a former data transmission system of the U.S. Department of Defense. AUTODIN consisted of a large amount of " AUTODIN Switching Centers " ( ASC, dt AUTODIN switching centers ), which were distributed both on the territory of the United States, as were installed in other countries like the UK and Japan.

The system was originally designed under the name " ComLogNet "; the Work on this started in 1958 by a consortium of Western Union, RCA, and IBM. The client of this project was the U.S. Air Force, which wanted hereby improve profitability and speed of the logistics for missile parts between five distribution centers and approximately 350 missile bases and suppliers. The official contract was awarded in 1959 to Western Union as the prime contractor and systems integrator, to RCA was issued the contract to build 5 computers for switches and IBM should build terminals with support for IBM punch cards and telex. The first exchange went into operation in 1962. During the implementation (now Defense Information Systems Agency ( DISA ) DCA ) was established by the U.S. government, that the system for the entire armed forces use could and it was the Defense Communications Agency assumed, which renamed it in " AUTODIN ". Wrote in 1962, the government of an expansion of the system to 9 switches, which was won by Philco - Ford. The development started in 1966. March 22, 1968, the Autodin multimedia terminal was in Europe at the Ramstein Air Base in operation. The system linking more than 300 Air Force bases, material warehouses, depots and other legitimate authorities in a single communications network. In 1982, a project that will " AUTODIN II " aborted instead to the Defense Data Network set up using the ARPANET technology.

The AUTODIN switching centers were replaced by various hardware / software combinations. Here are two examples:

• A program called NOVA to switch connections and to route messages. The system was designed for a speed of 2400 baud, but also compounds up to 9600 baud it were possible. The transmission rate was lowered to 15 bps, if the required compound, this.
• A series of hardware / software systems with the label " DABS " ( DoDIIS Autodin Bypass System) which allowed the transmission of messages over serial connections at up to 9600 baud, and TCP / IP connections over Ethernet; in the latter, the connection speed is only limited by the available bandwidth.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the AUTODIN switching centers were shut down except for one. This was done with the intention to shift the transmission secure messages to the message defense system.