DATAR

Digital Automated Tracking and Resolving
(DATAR)

Developer	Royal Canadian Navy in partnership with Ferranti Canada
Release date	Prototype tested in 1953
Introductory price	CAN$1.9 million[1] (almost CAN$15 million in year-2000 dollars)
Memory	Drum memory
Display	Adapted radar unit
Input	Trackball and trigger

DATAR, short for Digital Automated Tracking and Resolving, was a pioneering computerized battlefield information system. DATAR combined the data from all of the sensors in a naval task force into a single "overall view" that was then transmitted back to all of the ships and displayed on plan-position indicators similar to radar displays. Commanders could then see information from everywhere, not just their own ship's sensors.

Development of the DATAR system was spurred by the Royal Navy's work on the Comprehensive Display System (CDS), which Canadian engineers were familiar with. The project was started by the Royal Canadian Navy in partnership with Ferranti Canada (later known as Ferranti-Packard) in 1949.^[2] They were aware of CDS and a US Navy project along similar lines but believed their solution was so superior that they would eventually be able to develop the system on behalf of all three forces. They also believed sales were possible to the Royal Canadian Air Force and US Air Force for continental air control.

A demonstration carried out in the fall of 1953 was by most measures an unqualified success, to the point where some observers thought it was being faked. By this time the US Air Force was well into development of their SAGE system and the RCAF decided that commonality with that force was more important than commonality with their own Navy. The Royal Navy computerized their CDS in the new Action Data Automation system, and the US Navy decided on a somewhat simpler system, the Naval Tactical Data System. No orders for DATAR were forthcoming.

When one of the two computers was destroyed by fire, the company was unable to raise funds for a replacement, and the project ended. The circuitry design used in the system would be applied to several other Ferranti machines over the next few years.