Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcvax!ukc!etive!hwcs!zen!frank
From: frank@zen.co.uk (Frank Wales)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: space news from March 27 AW&ST
Message-ID: <1584@zen.co.uk>
Date: 16 May 89 10:22:20 GMT
References: <1989May8.033250.18780@utzoo.uucp> <6958@ecsvax.UUCP> <14318@bfmny0.UUCP> <1989May10.155656.29150@utzoo.uucp>
Reply-To: frank@zen.co.uk (Frank Wales)
Organization: Zengrange Limited, Leeds, England
Lines: 24

In article <1989May10.155656.29150@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp
 (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <14318@bfmny0.UUCP> tneff@bfmny0.UUCP (Tom Neff) writes:
>>I believe the biggest reason they wanted to switch was not the 
>>power of the laptop (they really don't ask it to do very much) but the 
>>fact that none of the principal investigators for middeck experiments 
>>could even BUY a Compass anymore to write their support software! Now 
>>with a true AT386 compatible they can program in their own labs and 
>>transport the software over to the laptop for crew training. 
>
>Coming soon to a spacecraft near you:  viruses in space!!
>
>There is something to be said for *not* being PC-compatible.

I can remember when HP-41s were used aboard the shuttle (for providing
information on next-avaiable radio contact and fuel balancing, and
later for scheduling things, I believe).  Do these laptops do the
same sort of things, and are the 41s obsolete as crew equipment now?

[I presume they are, since HP stopped using the shuttle to advertise
the 41 a few years ago.]
--
Frank Wales, Systems Manager,        [frank@zen.co.uk<->mcvax!zen.co.uk!frank]
Zengrange Ltd., Greenfield Rd., Leeds, ENGLAND, LS9 8DB. (+44) 532 489048 x217