Computer Family Architecture Selection Committee

An Army/Navy Computer Family Architecture (CFA) Selection Committee, comprising ten Army and seventeen Navy Organizations was organized by the Naval Research Laboratory and the Army Electronics Command in 1975 to select a proven, well-known computer architecture to be the basis of a Military Computer Family (MCF). The Selection Committee met five times in the period between October, 1975, and August, 1976 and evaluated nine computer architecture candidates in accordance with criteria established by the Committee. The Committee applied a preliminary screening process to select three candidates (IBM S/370, DEC PDP-11, and Inter-data 8/32) for more intensive evaluation. This final evaluation process considered experimentally determined architectural efficiency, support software availability, life cycle cost, and architecture licensing. As a result of this process, the Committee ranked the three architecture finalists. See also rept. no. ECOM-4526 dated Aug 77, AD-A049 468.