McIDAS, the "Man computer Interactive Data Access System", is a weather forecasting tool developed at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in the 1970s and used continually to this day.
At the SSEC, Suomi and Parent developed the Spin Scan Cloudcover Camera (SSCC) to accurately measure and map cloud cover.
The software solution, by Smith and Phillips, was able to demonstrate the ability to calculate wind speed and direction based solely on the images of the clouds.
Based on this success, Suomi was able to gain additional funding from NASA and the NSF to develop a prototype all-computerized image processing system.
They encouraged the SSEC team to continue development, make the system even more automated, and include the ability to combine data from any source.
[2] The biggest problem in developing a fully automated solution was finding a machine within their budget with the speed and storage capabilities required.
The team eventually settled on a Datacraft/5 computer equipped with 96 kB of core memory and two 5 MB hard drives, one fixed, one removable.
[4] Continued demand resulted in the creation of a second-generation version of McIDAS based on six Harris/6 computers connected together using a custom networking system they called "burn lines".
With the improved performance these machines offered, the distributed architecture of the second-generation McIDAS was no longer needed and systems returned to a single-server installation.
These versions spread McIDAS beyond the university and laboratory, and users were soon found at television stations and weather prediction agencies around the world.
[9] As of December 2009, McIDAS-X is tested and supported by SSEC on AIX, Enterprise Linux, HP-UX, IRIX, Mac OS X, Solaris, and Windows XP workstations.
The functionality of SSEC's HYDRA software package is also being integrated into McIDAS-V for viewing and analyzing hyperspectral satellite data.