00100	.require "good.pub" source_file;
00200	.LTR Defense Supply Service - Washington
00300	Room 1D-245
00400	The Pentagon
00500	Washington, D. C. 20310
00600	
00700	
00800	Attention:  Mr. Eugene Stubbs, Contracting Officer
00900	
01000	Subject:  Computer Equipment Purchase (SD-183 Capital Equipment)
01100	
01200	Gentlemen:
01300	.fac
01400	Permission is requested to purchase the components of a  minicomputer
01500	system  in  support of advanced hand-eye research, plus four computer
01600	typewriter  terminals  suitable  for  remote  use.   The   particular
01700	components and costs are as follows:
01800	.verbatim
01900		Item					Quantity   Unit Cost
02000	    DEC PDP-11/45 with 16K words of core, etc.	    1	     $34,000
02100	    Intel MOS memory system (3*65K*18 bits, 500ns)  1	      32,000
02200	    SPS-41 Signal Processor			    1	      30,500
02300	    Video I/O system				    1	       6,600
02400	    Interface with PDP-10			    1	       2,000
02500	    Portable terminals (Texas Inst. 725 or equiv.)  4	       2,895
02600	.fac
02700	The University is financially unable to provide funds from its own
02800	resources to buy this equipment, so we request that contractual funds
02900	be authorized for this purpose.  There are sufficient funds available
03000	under the existing contract (SD-183) to cover this cost.
03100	
03200	Figure 1 shows the configuration of the proposed system, with
03300	existing elements in solid boxes and proposed elements in dashed
03400	boxes.  The major performance objectives of this system are as follows.
03500	
03600	.narrow 4,4;
03700	1.  To be able to control two or more mechanical arms operating as
03800	quickly as possible.
03900	
04000	2.  To obtain higher quality digitized images from TV cameras (7 bits
04100	per picture element instead of the present 4).
04200	
04300	3.  To perform image processing with sufficient speed that new classes
04400	of visual operators can be employed practically.
04500	
04600	4.  To demonstrate the feasibility of performing hand-eye functions in
04700	a medium-priced system.
04800	
04900	.end
05000	The data paths between elements are all 16 or 32 bits wide.  System
05100	control can be performed by either the PDP-10 or PDP-11.
05200	
05300	
05400	←Figure 1.  Proposed Hand-eye Subsystem Configuration
05500	.begin verbatim
05600	
05650		PDP-10
05675		   |
05700	     _ _ _ ∨ _ _ _          _ _ _ _ _ _ _          _____________
05800	    |             |        |             |        |             |
05900	        PDP-10                DEC Core            |     Arm     |
06000	    |  Interface  |        |  (16K*16)   |        |  Controller |
06100	                                                  |             |
06200	    |_ _ _ _ _ _ _|        |_ _ _ _ _ _ _|        |_____________|
06300		   ∧			  ∧			 ∧
06400		   |			  |			 |
06420		   |			  |			 |
06440		   ∨	    Unibus	  ∨			 ∨
06460		    ---------------------------------------------
06480		   ∧			  ∧			 ∧
06485		   |			  |			 |
06490		   |			  |			 |
06500	     _ _ _ ∨ _ _ _          _ _ _ ∨ _ _ _          ______∨______
06600	    |             |        |             |        |             |
06700	          DEC                 Intel MOS           |   SPS-41    |
06800	    |  PDP-11/45  |<------>|    Memory   |<------>| Signal Proc.|
06900	                              (3*65K*16)          |             |
07000	    |_ _ _ _ _ _ _|        |_ _ _ _ _ _ _|        |_____________|
07100					  ∧
07200					  |
07250					  |
07300	     _____________          _ _ _ ∨ _ _ _          _____________
07400	    |             |        |             |        |             |
07500	    |     TV      |             Video             |    Video    |
07600	    |   Cameras   |------->| I/O System  |------->| Synthesizer |
07700	    |             |                               |             |
07800	    |_____________|        |_ _ _ _ _ _ _|        |_____________|
07900								 |
07950								 ∨
07975							    TV Monitors
08000	
08100	
08150	.end
08200	A primary function of the PDP-11 will be the control of mechanical
08300	arms.  At present this task is performed for one arm by our PDP-6,
08400	operating at about 50% of capacity.  We will soon have two arms going
08500	and are attempting to drive them at even higher speeds, so greater
08600	computational performance is needed.  The PDP-11/45 appears to be
08700	the most economical processor capable of performing this function.
08800	We propose to purchase it with the following options:  16K words of
08900	core memory, floating point processor, programmable real time clock,
09000	and memory management.
09100	
09200	We have chosen to acquire the PDP-11 with a minimum of DEC memory
09300	and to purchase MOS memories separately from Intel.  It appears
09400	that this will provide higher reliablity at substantially lower cost.
09500	The interface to this memory, which we will build, has four ports.
09600	This enables the memory to be used concurrently by the PDP-11 and SPS-41 processors,
09700	and for buffering of TV camera images (in or out).
09800	The amount of memory (3 * 65K * 16 bits) is chosen to be sufficient to
09900	represent one complete television image (6 bits of intensity and 6 bits of
10000	color per element over a 512 * 512 field).