REAL Wargames Tech Teardown!!!

I haven't seen it either- and my wife thinks I am a nutjob because of my weird (as she puts it ) hobby of electronics!! (hahaha)

Mike Hughes

Fran, there was always the story about the false missile alarm because the dataline that send data had a stuck bit and instead of sending a test signal with 0 missiles it was sending a number like 2 continuously. That would be a good wargames, digital logic lesson :)

Julian S, you must be one well adjusted dude man. Stay safe!

So... I have not actually seen Wargames.

It's not so simple because it is multiplexed with an external sync, and the EPROM is an encoded lookup table type encryption - plus it is just a numerical display. What's to see?

Fran Blanche

Yes - they are vinyl!

Fran Blanche

Frantone Swag Day!! Thank you, Fran!! Quick question ... are the stickers outdoor-safe? I want one on my car!

Eric At Random

I'd love an all War Games video. I saw it in the theater, owned the VHS, Laserdisc and DVD (not blu-ray).

John McCormick

Love that story about the voice!

Tannalum :))))

I think the four digital displays gave 2 sets of co-ordinates, 1st set would be the target co-ordinates, and the 2nd set -real time missile location. 1st digit would be cardinal point eg N,S,E,W and then lat and long. seems the only logical explanation given the displays actual role and the layout of the led's. Another really fascinating video. Thanks Fran.

Mike Hughes

I must be behind the times. I've just built a project using metal can 2n2222 transistors to drive relays from a microprocessor. Great video as always, Fran.

David Peaker

Stanislav Petrov on 26 September 1983 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov

Dr Andy Hill

There was also that incident where a Russian Missile operator, refused to follow protocol because he thought the computer was wrong, which turned out to be true, as a weather anomaly had shown up as a US missile launch. Unfortunately I can't remember when it happened or what the heroes name was!

Dr Andy Hill

I guess boards would be replaced at various times to perform upgrades. No software updates in those days of course!

Dr Andy Hill

I have an idea: If you have the heart to remove the wires from the display board, that by itself is something you could probably fire up - probably 5 volts. The rest of the circuit would probably be too complex, but you could ultimately build an interface to a computer if you wanted, but I think just some simple connections. I'm sure you could easily get the data sheets to the display drivers and maybe the displays as well.

Just a fun video. Thanks.

Beautiful...

Nay, your programs are never too long!

Rick Lett

Fran, I grew up with military and aviation electronics since my grandmother worked for Collins Radio for 30 years. She’d bring me scrap stuff from the plant that was simply beautiful. Cost was no object for military electronics during the cold war and the use of gold and ceramic chips, along with conformal coating, made this technology absolutely unique and technically beautiful. Naturally, I finally got into Collins and just celebrated 20 years of service there. But I knew right away in War Games that they were using MIL-SPEC switches, lights and displays. That impressed the hell out of me and the main set with all those consoles with twist-lights were just pure cinematic art. I read they spent a million dollars on that main war room set (in 1983 dollars) and you can see it in the craftsmanship. The only glaring realism problem was that everything looked like it was just installed the day before shooting. Normally, there are stickers everywhere used as tamper seals on panels and the contractors would usually have their name on those. The complete lack of dust, dirt and wear made for a great set, but was far cleaner than the real launch control facilities. I mean there wasn’t a scratch on anything! If you were not drawn into the movie in the first 10 minutes, you might as well have left the theatre. Reporters would ask the Air Force if their real NORAD facility was like the movie and they all responded with “We wish!” And there was an incident in the early 80s where the real missile system went on alert because someone had accidentally loaded a simulation into the system that got everyone spun up. As with the event you described in the 90s, they figured it out well before actually launching. So, naturally, the press was grilling the Air Force as to how probable an accidental war could actually occur when War Games was released. As far as your module goes, it looks like they used ceramic packaged TTL ICs, which can operate up to 125 degrees Celsius. After many years of use, boards like that would discolor. It is interesting they didn’t seem to have proper ventilation to avoid that heat. I saw one 54LS chip on one board and that’s simply the military version of the 74LS series. Part codes on the other chips indicate they were of the military-spec style. If you ever want to remove the Humiseal conformal coating, you can submerge the board in a pan of Toluene or Xylene. It doesn’t take long to dissolve the coating. It doesn’t remove the lettering on components either. Just in case you wanted to replace a chip. A Q-Tip with the same chemicals can be used to clear an area when you don’t want to clear the whole board. As far as powering it up, I would try to find the power supply, but if I really didn’t care if I broke the unit or not, I’d just apply 5VDC to the ground and Vcc pins of one of the known TTL chips and see if that wakes most of it up. The readouts would probably just display zeros, or random data, though, so there’s not much of a payoff if it is powered up. That wire jumper is pretty strange for a board that simple. Obviously, someone overlooked a connection, or a requirement changed, and they didn’t want to redesign the board. When circuit boards began to be multi-layered, the “cuts” and “jumps” were added after the board was wave soldered. After a certain number of cuts and jumps were made, it was company policy to “re-spin” the board to incorporate the changes that used those jumpers. That board would usually have a “Rev A”, or something similar, to alert the customer that they had a newer board. The R&D boards were really clogged with jumper wires as they worked out bugs in the hardware. The production boards would incorporate the jumps. Outlandishly expensive parts were also used in commercial and military avionics. They too used the higher temp TTL chips to meet stringent environmental requirements. Now everything we makes is almost all surface-mount and automatically populated by placement machines. After the cold war ended, there was not much of a market for MIL-SPEC components, so the industry slowly started to move into commercial-grade components. It stopped being fun for me when tweezers and a microscope became necessary to mount parts. Everything is still conformal coated, though. Moisture resistance is always important. There’s less elegant machining of metal and use of exotic materials these days and I really miss that era. I was born 10 years too late to be part of the hand-made module construction days. But unlike cell phones, Avionics have to last for decades because the development of a new system every year is simply not possible with all the testing and oversight required. We replaced a system of 8 analog computers we made in the late 60s for the KC-135 with one computer. But 40 years of service with late 60s technology is pretty damn good! What electronics do we use that can last 40 years? Geez, there’s so many cool things I’d like to donate to you, but I’m glad you explained the realities of PO boxes, Covid, and time invested in dealing with incoming stuff. If you like over-engineered works of electronic art and display technologies, just let me know. Great video! And I really liked the part where you explained what they had to do with that War Room set and all of the monitors and projectors. Most people at the time, including me, figured better computers could draw all that color graphics in real time. No chance in 1983, but they sure can now! Oh, and the “Peacekeeper” MX-missiles were all retired after the cold war. It was the most devastating weapons system ever designed by man and they cost incalculable dollars. At least they used the rockets to launch satellites, so we didn’t lose all the money we spent on those. I think the Minuteman II is the only land-based ICBM we have today. And, yes, I have parts from their control centers as well. The last of the “money is no object” electronics went into those nuclear applications.

Matt Wietlispach

Brings back so many memories of my Navy days. So much of our equipment had cards like that.

BobC