Glossary of Services supplied by AAP Group
Multiple Distributed Systems (MDS)
This was the for runner to the MDS services used to support pay TV today. AAPCS was involved with the delivery of high speed services via MDS (pictures). The signal was transmitted from the MLC building on the corner of George and Adelaide St, Brisbane at a frequency of 3 Gigahertz. Technicians travelled around Brisbane installing grid-pack antennas, down converters and structured cabling depending on what service was going top be used. The equipment was installed on premises as far as Petrie to the North, Springwood to the South and Ipswich to the West. The structured cable was connected to a Row Grabber Modem (RGM) where the data was stripped from the feed. The RGM serial connection was then feed to some type of AAP service equipment. (Newscan PC, Newstrack PC, MES 300 controller, PDP8-420 controller, MES 500 controller (MQT).Small Dish Service (SDS)
For our remote clients, AAP needed to deliver similar services as the MDS (pictures), but due to the distant of some client and increase in speed of delivery, Telecom cost were prohibitive. AAP utilised the new K band satellites and carried its service via satellite. This service replaced the 1200 Bps telecom datel modems, at the regional newspaper centres. The SDS(pictures) service consisted of a Hughes satellite dish and indoor unit with the controlling Hub located in Glebe N.S.W..Demultiplexer and Selector Unit - DAS
This unit was built in-house by AAP in Sydney and allowed the transmission of multiplexed services on a serial line, i.e. 1200 Bps Datel modem or from a 4800 Bps service from a SDS receiver. The unit was designed with redundant power supply and demultiplexing circuits. The equipment suffered from failure due to overheating and broken componentary (from incorrect packaging).
Transport case designed to carry DAS units
The Newstream system (PC base unit) has replace them with about 99% efficiency.
Newstrack
There has been a number of versions of Newstrack over the years. The original software was known as
Flak Fury and was an American product. Newstrack today is based on Microsoft Windows 3.1. The variants have been Newstrack (DOS), Newstrack DOS Network (netbios), Windows (both Standalone and Network - TCPIP and Netbios). The windows version was also available in 19 and 100 categories. This product is still holding its own today against the new Web base systems (Newscentre).
Newscan
This is a service that was first delivered to clients via 75 baud telex feed. The data was feed into a unit that converted it to a video signal which was presented to a TV screen or monitor. The first product used a converted amateur radio device, this was then redesigned to accept a high speed input (300 Bps) with a colour text output. The next generations used
Sinclair QL PC
and IBM PC based product, with colour teletext service and advertising pages inserted every 5 or more pages. The units were located in hotels and airports(Golden Wing Lounges). This product was very successfully displayed at the Swiss and the Queenland Newspaper pavilons at Expo 88 in Brisbane.
Australia Market Quote - AMQ
A controller based system with terminal on desktops. Requested data was delivered to the controller by the MDS service and the request network on Datel lines.Multiquote Terminal - MQT
MQT was a controller based product that allowed up to 12 workstations to be connnected to the controller. Information was requested and delivered to the controller by datel lines (Quote and Monitor). Firmware was held on the MQT by E-proms and a magnetic core used to save the configurations of the workstations.
Phillips monitor were available for clients to use in their offices where they mounted on Pivotelli brackets from the roof or off the walls as to allow maxium coverage in the office areas. The 556 keyboard was later replaced by fully programmable keyboard which allowed the user to select what functions they required.
Videomaster
Used in the offices of stockbrokers till the mid 1980s. This system was an improvemnet on the Stockmaster. The information was now displayed on a VDU and instead of only one piece of information you had multiple pieces.
Stockmaster
Stockmaster terminal was used in Stockbrokers offices. The information was displayed on NIXIE tubes. These terminal were connected back to a controller in the clients office
Company News
Telex tape reader used by operators in reading Comnews, as deliveried by companies.
Racing
Publications
AAP Racing produced year books called Class Racing. AAP racing commentator Glen Davis was asked to input into this publication. The Brisbane office still has some of these publication on display.
