aps (10/07/82)
One day, I was inspired to find out what the story was. I called the FAA in Washington D.C. and eventually got to some people at their main computer facility (after about 10 calls!). They said wait until about 1984 or 85 and there will be some dial up numbers. (I offered to help them if it would speed things up but it seems that larger IBM type mainframes have this ...) They would allow me to get a drop to their computer (Oklahoma?) but I said that I could put a down payment on a Lear for the same amount. At any rate, they turned me on to some local (Bedford, Ma) company called WSI Corporation. After talking with them at length, I find out that they have one of these drops between the FAA and their 11/70 which (from their descriptions) is running RSX or RSTS (an old time sharing system from a Mass based computer company). It seems that you can get from them the same things you can get from an FSS but in terminal form (they recomend TI745's). You can get the Radar summaries and weather maps by making use of the standard character sets. It is expensive but I have nothing to compare it to except the cost of the phone call to the FSS. The charge is $1.00 per connect minute and a minimum charge of $85.00 per month. (May be a group of people could share that cost because the samples that were sent me were pretty good.) Again, one can get at all the info that an FSS can get. Please let me know of others that people have heard of. aps.