Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!rochester!sol!yamauchi From: yamauchi@cs.rochester.edu (Brian Yamauchi) Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle Subject: Re: New Shuttle Computers Message-ID: Date: 10 Mar 91 18:51:35 GMT References: <1991Mar7.010752.10632@agate.berkeley.edu> <1991Mar9.044834.27802@cimage.com> <1991Mar10.164459.5216@rodan.acs.syr.edu> Sender: news@cs.rochester.edu (Usenet news) Organization: University of Rochester Lines: 27 In-Reply-To: amichiel@rodan.acs.syr.edu's message of 10 Mar 91 16:44:59 GMT Nntp-Posting-Host: heron.cs.rochester.edu In article <1991Mar10.164459.5216@rodan.acs.syr.edu> amichiel@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Allen J Michielsen) writes: >As hard drive technology improves, density increases, head size decreases, >amplifier/noise improves, shock/temp stability improves, all of whiich we >see every day, EVENTUALLY, they (nasa/contractors) will probably be able to >make drives that have enough head fly space & 'stuff' like density, speed, >etc, that will make them reliable enough for the demanding rigors of space >flight or sim. I've heard it flung around about portable drives and stuff, >but this is like comparing a skateboard to a porsche. >I have yet to see anybody using a portable that was >moving in 3 axis, vibrating 'inc' at multiple frequencies and accelerating >and decelerating through multiple planes simultaneously. I recall that a GRID portable computer (with hard drive) *was* flown on a shuttle flight. I also seem to remember that it had more computing power and memory than *all* of the shuttle's onboard computers... I believe it was used for plotting the shuttle's position and trajectory. Does anyone have the details? -- _______________________________________________________________________________ Brian Yamauchi University of Rochester yamauchi@cs.rochester.edu Department of Computer Science _______________________________________________________________________________