920AT Computer

The date is based on information fro Simon Lavington's book 'Moving Targets'.The 920M and 920 AT were both18-Bit members of the family. The 920M was introduced in 1967 and was indeed made entirely at Borehamwood and saw production in the Jaguar Nav/Attack system. However the 920M was only slightly better than the US competition (such as successors to the Verdan. Rochester started development of a new small and light computer which became the 12 series which owed nothing to the Borehamwood family of computers. The problem was that Rochester saw the advantage in using the 920 family Instruction Code and support tools so Avionics went ahead with a new airborne central computer called the 920ATC; Advanced Technology Computer. This had floating point hardware and was the first in the 920 family to do so. The 920 ATC had flight trials in 1976/77 and went into production in mid-1977 presumably as the 920AT. All the 920AT and 12/12 designs were made at Rochester. The 920AT was used in the Nimrod ASW; ultimately two 128k units were fitted. By the time the Nimrod AEW was developed the 920AT was running out of steam but some 250 computers had been supplied for the Nimrod Mk2 ASW and RAAF P3C and 300 for the Tornado ADV Radar system