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 By today's standards it seems outdated, but it does have certain advantages; for instance, it's inherently nonvolatile when power is removed.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 UUCP: ..!{decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!vax135!petsd!peora!jer US Mail: MS 795; Perkin-Elmer SDC; 2486 Sand Lake Road, Orlando, FL 32809-7642 "Vg frrzf yvxr hc gb zr."