Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!sun-barr!lll-winken!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!usc!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!ukc!strath-cs!str-va!cabp10
From: cabp10@vaxa.strath.ac.uk (Theora Jones, In Person!)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: New (!?!?!?!) Shuttle Computers
Message-ID: <1991Mar7.142311.10412@vaxa.strath.ac.uk>
Date: 7 Mar 91 14:23:11 GMT
Organization: StrathHackers Unlimited
Lines: 39


 Excuse me for my ignorance in this matter, but I'm still a student and I find
it completely unbelievable that NASA are using technology that even 'toy'
home computers no longer use...
 Core memories???? I was under the impression they went out about the same time
as gas street lights and computers that took up a whole building just to add
two numbers !
 Magnetic Tape???? what about disks????? even floppies, with up to 20MB on a
single 3.5" provide a sturdier, more convenient answer.. and how about the
DATAPac technology? 100MB and more hard disks, especially suited to being
roughed around? (thats the ones where you plug them out of one computer, sling
them in your brief case, shake them to bits on the subway, then plug them into
another machine, and the data is 100% guaranteed)

 I would be looking at, AT THE LEAST, radiation hardened datapacs, storing the 
flight programs (with 3 backups,each one oriented a different way so that a 
sharp manuver that might just crash the heads on one will only move them on
another) I would expect radiation hardened processors, of an industry sstandard
type (80x86, or 680x0 series) for easy replacement, and a well tested and
trusted product. As has been suggested by someone else already, EAROMS or just
straight ROMS can be used for holding much of the non changing code in memory
during a flight.
 as for RAM needs, if in 1991, the leading manufacturers of semiconductors can
put upwards of 10^6 transistors on a chip, but can't make radiation resistant
store, then we shouldn't be puttin people into space, we should be putting them
into the space inside some peoples heads, to find the technology we need!!!!

Theora.


-- 
sig (made it through the ethernet alive!)
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Theora Jones  Strathclyde University, SCOTLAND   || " I can fly higher than an
CABP10@uk.ac.strath.vaxa (somewhere on JANET)    ||   Eagle, with you as the
CABP10%vaxa.strath.ac.uk (elsewhere, hopefully)  ||   wind beneath my wings "
CABP10%vaxa.strath.ac.uk@ukacrl (just might work)||                 8:-) 1990
WE SUPPORTED DESERT STORM ! KUWAIT IS NOW FREE ! ||      "Lets be MAWS!"
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