SPACE SHUTTLE ORBITER COMPUTER PROCESSOR

Contained inside an all metal outer case with interior gold-plated electronics having a total weight of 54 pounds. Seven data ports and an analog hour meter (reading 7292 hours) are located between dual hand brackets at the front. A side ID tag reads in part: "MFG by IBM Corp. Owego, NY for Rockwell Int. Space Division, CII, MC615-0001-0093, Contract No. NAS9-14000, Part No. 6247300-231, Serial No. 04, Date of MFG - 9/20/78, Model Type - Production." Along two sides "GROUND USE ONLY" has been stenciled in red. With numerous Rockwell blue and white inspection tags plus multiple quality control stamps.

Development of the Space Shuttle flight General Purpose Computers (GPC) began in early 1972. This unit is one of the first four production units created, having serial number 04. There were five sets of GPCs in the Shuttle Orbiter, each with two major components constructed as group units – the IOP and a central processing unit (CPU). All were interconnected via data transmission cables along common party lines. This allowed dual and in some case triple redundancy for all flight functions.

The IOPs were designed to format and transmit computer commands to, and receive responses from all the Orbiter's flight systems. Additional functions include maintaining interaction status with its own CPU and the other GPCs. These activities were performed by a series of 24 independent data processors and 24 data buses that transmitted serial digital data.