[net.arch] Answer to: What do you call the "blockhouse" now?

eugene@ames.UUCP (Eugene Miya) (07/30/85)

We did not receive the referenced articles as our news feed was down.

>   OK trivia buffs: what kind of computers (manufacturer, operating
> system, etc.) do they have in the LCC and launch pedestal?
> 
> Cheers,
>   Lindsay
> 
> Lindsay Cleveland  (akgua!glc) (404) 447-3909   Cornet 583-3909
> AT&T Technologies/Bell Laboratories ... Atlanta, Ga

I have not been to KSC, but I believe the majority of main machines are a
combination of IBM 370-class machines running a home grown system and
several hundred MODCOMP-IIs, IVs, and CLASSICs running different versions
of the MAX operating system.  There are a few PDP-11s and VAX/VMS systems,
some VARIAN 620f and Univacs V73s and 1100s.

By the way, I was at the ACM booth at SIGGRAPH, and there is an excellent
article in a recent issue of the Annuals of Computing on NASA space
computers.  It mentions the use of magnetic tape drives at a time when
everybody else is using disk drives.


--eugene miya
  NASA Ames Research Center
  {hplabs,ihnp4,dual,hao,decwrl,allegra}!ames!aurora!eugene
  emiya@ames-vmsb

al@aurora.UUCP (Al Globus) (07/31/85)

> We did not receive the referenced articles as our news feed was down.
> 
> >   OK trivia buffs: what kind of computers (manufacturer, operating
> > system, etc.) do they have in the LCC and launch pedestal?
> > 
> > Cheers,
> >   Lindsay
> > 
> > Lindsay Cleveland  (akgua!glc) (404) 447-3909   Cornet 583-3909
> > AT&T Technologies/Bell Laboratories ... Atlanta, Ga
> 
Related issue:  JSC just bought a large number of MASSCOMP's running a
real time version of UNIX to replace mission control computers.  I don't
know how the conversion is going or even if it will ever be accomplished.

roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) (08/03/85)

> there is an excellent article in a recent issue of the Annuals of
> Computing on NASA space computers.  It mentions the use of magnetic tape
> drives at a time when everybody else is using disk drives.
> --eugene miya

	If you are interested in the subject of space computers, take a
look at CACM, Vol 27, #9 (Sept 1984).  To quote from "The Space Shuttle
Primary Computer System" by Spector and Gifford in that issue (copyright
(C) 1984 by The Association for Computing Machinery, Inc.):

	AS. Is the memory core?

	Macina.  Yes, it's ferrite core.  By today's standards it seems
	outdated, but it does have certain advantages; for instance, it's
	inherently nonvolatile when power is removed.

	I believe core is also much less sensitive to cosmic radiation etc.
than semiconductor memory is.  Surprisingly enough, the on-board computers
are rather non-impressive in terms of computing power; the standard cpu on
the shuttle is about a 1/2 MIPS machine.  They are designed not to be fast,
but to be non-crashable.  You cretins arguing SysV vs. 4.2 for better
stability will notice that neither system is used on the shuttle. :-)
-- 
Roy Smith <allegra!phri!roy>
System Administrator, Public Health Research Institute
455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016

jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) (08/10/85)

> It mentions the use of magnetic tape drives at a time when
> everybody else is using disk drives.

I saw a cost analysis on this awhile back.  Its conclusion was that for
most of NASA's computers-in-space functions, the magnetic media only have
to be sequential-access devices; and that the cost-per-bit of magnetic
tape is enormously smaller than for disk.  Thus, the use of the magnetic
tapes.
-- 
Shyy-Anzr:  J. Eric Roskos
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