Embedded-systems specialist Alan Taylor has built an F14 CADC FPGA recreation and used a 3D-printed scale F-14 Tomcat to demonstrate the jet’s signature swing-wing behavior. Taylor said in a July 24 post that the team recreated the F-14 Central Air Data Computer and made the model so the recreated logic could be tested against the aircraft feature it helped control.
The project matters because the Tomcat’s CADC sits in one of computing history’s more annoying footnote fights: whether the MP944 system inside it deserves the title of the world’s first microprocessor. The Intel 4004 got the public fame. MP944 supporters point out that the F-14 system entered service in June 1970, more than a year before the 4004 became available in November 1971, and that the aircraft computer remained officially secret until 1998.
What is the F-14 CADC?
The Central Air Data Computer was the F-14’s real-time flight computer. It calculated flight parameters including altitude, airspeed and Mach number, and it helped enable the Tomcat’s articulated sweep-wing system, the moving-wing design most people associate with the aircraft.
The CADC was built around a six-chip system that included the MP944. According to accounts cited by Tom’s Hardware, Steve Geller, Ray Holt and a team of 25 designed the flight-system chip. The MP944 was a 20-bit, pipelined, parallel multi-microprocessor built with MOS technology, running at 375 kHz and executing 9,375 instructions per second.
Those numbers will not scare a modern microcontroller, which is the point. The achievement was doing useful real-time flight work in a harsh aircraft environment at the start of the 1970s. The MP944 also passed ruggedness requirements and could operate across a temperature range from minus 55 to plus 125 degrees Celsius, according to the same technical history.
Some chip-architecture enthusiasts argue that the MP944 was eight times faster than Intel’s 4004. That comparison needs context: Intel designed the 4004 for a desktop calculator, while the MP944 was built for a military aircraft. The two machines were not chasing the same job, even if the historical bragging rights remain irresistible.
What did Alan Taylor release?
Taylor has published an open-source implementation of the F-14 CADC on GitHub. The repository includes VHDL source code, documentation and testbenches for an FPGA recreation of the aircraft computer.
The files are broader than a novelty MP944 clone. Taylor’s repository says the project includes synthesizable VHDL implementations for all six of the original CADC chips. The FPGA target listed in the repository is a Spartan-7-based system-on-module, part of the Adiuvo Embedded System Tile.
The 3D-printed Tomcat is the fun part, and also a useful sanity check. A CADC recreation that can move a model’s swing wings gives the project a visible mechanical output tied to the original aircraft’s defining feature. It does not turn a printed model into a fighter jet, obviously, but it is a cleaner demo than blinking an LED and calling it aviation history.
This story draws on original reporting from Tom's Hardware.
