IBM Series/1 - Series/1 in The Marine Corps

Series/1 in The Marine Corps

The United States Marine Corps was a major Series/1 customer in the late 1970s and into the early 1980s. IBM created a ruggedized, portable version with a green plastic and metal housing for field and shipboard use known as the IBM Series I Model 4110. The central processor unit boasted twin 1 megabyte 8 inch floppy disk drives, an 8 inch green monitor with 25 × 80 character resolution (and seldom-used graphics capability) and 16 kilobytes of RAM which was upgraded to 32 kilobytes in 1984. Each standard 'suite' included the CPU unit, a keyboard, and a 132 column dot-matrix printer with a separate cooling-fan base. This suite was transported in two green, foam-lined, waterproof, locking plastic cases; each weighing over 100 pounds loaded. Among the optional pieces of equipment was a paper tape punch and a magnetic tape reader. Each of these also came with its own case.

The official nomenclature for this equipment was the 'Automated Data Processing Equipment for the Fleet Marine Force' (ADPE-FMF), but it was universally known as the 'Green Machine'.

The initial rollout of the equipment was on the west coast at Camp Pendleton in 1981, where the 1st FSSG Information Systems Management Office (ISMO) was formed to develop software and support the new equipment. ISMOs were also formed at 2nd FSSG at Camp Lejeune, 2nd MAW Cherry Point and 3rd FSSG and 1st MAW on Okinawa and were staffed with computer programmers (MOS 4063/4066) who's responsibilities included training of end users, hardware and software troubleshooting and development of local computer applications. Systems development offices were also established at Marine Corps Central Design and Programming Activities (MCCDPA) at the Marine Corps Finance Center, Kansas City, Missouri, at Marine Corps Base Quantico, and at Marine Corps Logistic Base Albany, Georgia. These offices specialized in (respectively) financial, personnel and logistical applications.

The 'Class I' systems were classified as mainframe systems – and the Series/1 systems that provided field input to them – that were maintained at and distributed from the three CDPAs. The chief among these were JUMPS/MMS (Joint Uniform Military Pay System/Manpower Management System), SASSY (Supported Activities Supply SYstem), and MIMMS (Marine Corps Integrated Maintenance Management System).

Designed primarily as a Source Data Automation (SDA) device for the enhancement of input into 'Class I' logistics and personnel computer systems, the ADPE-FMF Series/1 provided the power of a minicomputer to the battalion/squadron commander. However, left in the hands of young Marine Corps programmers eager to explore the capabilities of their new equipment, the Series/1 soon proved to be a valuable and flexible workhorse for all manner of tasks at all organizational levels.

Dozens of 'Class II' systems were locally developed and maintained at the GSUs (General Support Units), later known as ISMOs (Information Systems Management Offices), providing undreamed-of functionality even as far as the company and deployed unit level. Systems developed included the waggishly named 'Standardized Wing Overseas Operation Passenger System' (SWOOPS – developed to generate Air Force passenger manifests from personnel databases) and 'Universal Random Integrity News Extract' (URINE – developed to provide names picked randomly from personnel databases for urinalysis screening), FLEAS (FLight Evaluation Administration System).

Although a COBOL compiler was available as part of the software package sold to the Marine Corps with the Series/1, most Class I and Class II systems development was in EDL.

In the middle 1980s, the ADPE-FMF equipment was gradually phased out in favor of IBM-PC class microcomputers running off-the-shelf software and Marine Corps developed applications written in Ada.