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From: sysmgr@KING.ENG.UMD.EDU (Doug Mohney)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: New Shuttle Computers
Message-ID: <00945591.AE398080@KING.ENG.UMD.EDU>
Date: 9 Mar 91 17:21:13 GMT
References: <1991Mar4.202334.22118@casbah.acns.nwu.edu> <1991Mar5.013344.7971@umiami.ir.miami.edu> <1991Mar06.063034.12021@nowhere.uucp> <1991Mar7.010752.10632@agate.berkeley.edu>,<1991Mar9.044834.27802@cimage.com>
Sender: news@eng.umd.edu (C-News)
Reply-To: sysmgr@KING.ENG.UMD.EDU (Doug Mohney)
Organization: The U. of MD, CP, CAD lab
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In article <1991Mar9.044834.27802@cimage.com>, gregc@cimage.com (Greg Cronau) writes:

>done on a regular basis, however. Modern, small radius platers with light
>weight winchester head technology should not be adversly affected. I doubt
>that very much engineering work would be required to rate a drive for an
>environment in which it would have to survive axis re-orientation while
>operating. Most 3.5" harddrives that are used in laptops have to able to
>handle this.

Yah, but most 3.5" hard drives are not in the process of being used whilst
being moved around (ie: You don't use a laptop on a rollercoster). Of course,
some brilliance will make the next generation of hard drives without (many)
moving parts in the next 2 years and they'll get retrofitted to the shuttle 
follow-on in oh, 2030 :-)

>	The bottom line is that harddrives are only useful in situations where
>you will be *writing* alot of new data. The control program for the
>shuttle is only *read* during flight, never written. A read only tape drive
>can be made much more rugged than a hard drive.

Ick. Tape is slow. I like the CD-ROM idea better. 

     Reform may be dying in the Soviet Union, but we have the right to 
                introduce it to the DECUS Board of Directors. 

  -- >                  SYSMGR@CADLAB.ENG.UMD.EDU                        < --