4kb
- Thread starter GURPS
- Start date
glhs837
Power with Control
Not even close to complicated enough. Those systems were preloaded with a small ability to adjust to a very small range of what might happen. What we need is wht I would call "robust complexity", as the systems we'll need to be sustainable will need to have depth and redundancy. Even "simple" sapcecraft will need to do a lot themselves and be able to adjust what they are doing based on circumstances. Best example will be trash collection in orbit, those will be autonomous machines working complex problems. That SpaceX booster that lost it's grid fin but still managed to "land" itself on the water? Aint doing that on 4Kb. Thats what I want my grandkids riding on.
circa 1987...my task to port (modify and compile) huge mainframe Fortran simulation programs over to the the "then new" world of IBM aand MSDOS PCs was being complicated by the limitations of the 10MB hard drive in my AT&T desktop computer. After enough pissing and moaning and warnings of missed project milestones on my part, the company coughed up the rather large chunk of change required to upgrade my hard drive to 40 MB. 40MB..that was an astounding amount of hard drive storage space...I instantly became the envy of the rest of the office staff. ;-)
We had a Syquest 44mb connected to the Family Mac SE in 1991 .. the removable Cartridges .... aka platters were $ 200 bucks a piece.
GWguy
*
Same time frame, circa 85-90, working in a DEC environment, for some reason it was ok to spend mega $ on the DEC hardware, microvaxes with dual 33 or 60 Mb disk drives, but it wasn't ok to requisition/buy small disk drives for PCs. We'd wait until someone's back was turned and a PC would magically have a 33 Mb drive.
Grumpy
Well-Known Member
I got out of the computer operations biz in 85 and saw the huge changes coming. Comparing my PC or even my phone to these huge IBM 360 systems I worked on is amazing. 2314 disks/drives were enormous yet only held 30mb, 3330 drives held 100mb(or dual density 200mb). Seems like just yesterday. Had a dial up monitor/modem at home that ran at 300 baud via TSO..you would see letters form 1 pixel at a time..
GWguy
*
I remember it well, except I was working on Control Data Cyber computers instead of IBM. One of our pre-processors had to be bootstrap cold started with physical switches so it could read a paper tape, THEN it could load a program from 9track tape.I got out of the computer operations biz in 85 and saw the huge changes coming. Comparing my PC or even my phone to these huge IBM 360 systems I worked on is amazing. 2314 disks/drives were enormous yet only held 30mb, 3330 drives held 100mb(or dual density 200mb). Seems like just yesterday. Had a dial up monitor/modem at home that ran at 300 baud via TSO..you would see letters form 1 pixel at a time..
Grumpy
Well-Known Member
Had a Honeywell mainframe in our shop that did the same, we called it the Dippy..think it was model DDP 662 or something like that.
Yooper
Up. Identified. Lase. Fire. On the way.
I'll go "contrarian" here (to a certain extent).
These days we assume WAY less risk than in earlier times.
That's both a good thing and a bad thing.
--- End of line (MCP)
The music is very appropriate.
Yooper
Up. Identified. Lase. Fire. On the way.
Good point.
It will be interesting what the "risk window" (or whatever the proper tech term is) will be for the "privates" once we start seeing manned flights.
Not knowledgeable about this subject area at all. But I am a fan.
--- End of line (MCP)
glhs837
Power with Control
So, NASA is the customer right now for all manned flights and sets the safety requirement, which is expressed as the probability of catastrophic failure per number if missions. shuttles calculated risk was once in eighty missions, for "Commercial Crew" they have set a requirement of one in two hundred and seventy.
We'll most likely see the first true commercial flight when SpaceX sends that silly Japanese guy around the moon with his artist buddies, but given that the Govt issues launch licences, we'll most likely not see a drop in that number for the foreseeable future, not here in the States anyway.
We'll most likely see the first true commercial flight when SpaceX sends that silly Japanese guy around the moon with his artist buddies, but given that the Govt issues launch licences, we'll most likely not see a drop in that number for the foreseeable future, not here in the States anyway.
I have this PDP 11/05 that I removed from a 'desk' in the mid 90's .......
the data plate on the desk was Control Data Computers Taper 1 2 3 4
the desk contained 3 x 6 V 20 [or 200] Amp Power Supplies and had 2 back plains interfacing to the 11/05
The 11/05 still powers up I used to have 'key sequece' that would run a memory test, I lost my notes years ago.
POLITICS ..... someone might have to be 'responsible' and lose there JOB
Musk should just by his own island in the Pacific and tell them to sod off