# What Happens if I ....



## MIflyer (Feb 23, 2021)

Back in the late 1950's Western Electric was building the radio guidance system for the Titan I ICBM. They had a class of USAF officers learning how the system worked and the highly technical training dragged a bit at times and there was a bit of dozing, especially after lunch. Finally they decided that each day after lunch they would take the officers on a local field trip in the plant and show them some new and hopefully stimulating technology the company was working on.

The first day they took them to see the new telephone system the company was about to introduce to service in a small community, in order to find out how it worked in the real world. It was a system called "Touch Tone" and featured buttons on the phone that produced tones for the dialing rather the old rotary dials. One of the officers looked at the Touch Tone phone and then pushed down all of the buttons.

The system then locked up and refused to respond to anything anyone tried to do. Plans to introduce it into service were delayed while it was redesigned. None of the WECO engineers had thought to try pushing down all of the buttons.

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## Dimlee (Feb 24, 2021)

Did he repeat his trick on the ICBM guidance system?


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## boeing299 (Feb 27, 2021)

Dimlee said:


> Did he repeat his trick on the ICBM guidance system?


I hope he did


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## MIflyer (Feb 27, 2021)

Dimlee said:


> Did he repeat his trick on the ICBM guidance system?



As far as I know, the WECO guidance system, used for the Titan I ICBM, Thor LV-2D ASAT, and later used for the Titan III series of space boosters, did not offer the opportunity for such hijinks.

And the Scout space booster predated the invention of Touch Tone technology and so the data that had to be entered into the guidance system during countdown used a rotary dial, as in, brrrrrt, brrrrrrt, brrt.

Meanwhile, over at the GE Radio Tracking System (GERTS), used by the Atlas E/F/H ICBMs and space boosters, used the most powerful computer available on the base and launches could not be conducted on alternate Fridays because the computer was being used to process payrolls.

GERTS used for Atlas (and Gemini Titan) was a complex and glitchy system, its only redeeming qualities being that it was the lowest cost and most reliable missile guidance system ever built. There was a light that would come on the radar cabinets indicating that a fault was indicated. One light kept coming on and they soon found out that it was due to the relay contacts in the heater for the reference oscillator welding themselves shut because the relay was under designed. The fix for this was to whack the cabinet at just the right spot, which popped the relay contacts loose. Repeated applications of human fists for that corrective action had left a dirty spot on the cabinet, so it was easy to see where to hit it. They decided to correct the problem by installing a digital temperature controller, and that gave us some trepidation. After all, we knew that banging on the cabinet worked....

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