Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!nrl-cmf!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!husc6!bu-cs!buengc!bph
From: bph@buengc.BU.EDU (Blair P. Houghton)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Core memory
Message-ID: <476@buengc.BU.EDU>
Date: 20 Jul 88 17:45:56 GMT
References: <1486@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> <1010@garth.UUCP> <758@vsi.UUCP> <427@ardent.UUCP>
Reply-To: bph@buengc.bu.edu (Blair P. Houghton)
Followup-To: comp.misc
Organization: Boston Univ. Col. of Eng.
Lines: 29

In article <427@ardent.UUCP> mec@ardent.UUCP (Michael Chastain) writes:
>I've read that NASA successfully recovered the Challenger core
>memories.  Talk about a violent "core dump"!
>
ha-Hah! |-)
>
>Source: an Ampex employee newsletter (the Ampex Amplifier, I think),
>sometime in 1987.  Ampex makes core memories for, among other things,
>shuttles.

Any word on whether the data was intact?  I would guess they'd hire
clowns and trumpets to announce _that_.

I've gotten a lot of good responses to my apprehension upon finding
out that the shuttle indeed does use mag. core memory.

The best excuse given for still using it is "closing the design"
(sorry, I've misplaced the messages and I don't know who to thank :-( ).
NASA would have gone out of its way to modernize the system were it
not for the fact that Government likes to move slow and sure wherever
it's unnecessary, and fast and pragmatic wherever it's dangerous.

Number two (but only slightly less significant) is radiation-hardness.

Now, my next question: what kind of feathers are used on
the MX missile?  My sysadmin swears its pheasant, but I think
it would be pigeon, to save money and because of second-sourcing
requirements... :-)

				--Blair