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This is a genuine post and not a joke.
I bet they have not told the Commander of the present mission and the crew that there lives were depending on something bought through an ebay auction.
PLEASE, PLEASE tell me that you are joking.
Please.
And yeah, for sure that would be an awesome commercial for Ebay if this were really the case...
[sfgate.com...]
Recent acquisitions include outdated circuit boards and 8-inch floppy-disk drives
8 inch floppy disk drives? Good to see they are using the latest technology!
ONya
Woz
According to that report thay had actually bought some bits on EBAY very recently.
Having obsolete parts redesigned and remanufactured costs considerably more than the component/part itself. Having to redesign a function or system so that you no longer need the obsolete part costs much, much more.
Technology moves on, and making sure that components designed for use today are still available in 20, 30 or 40 years time is somewhat difficult. Particularly when it may have taken 10, 20 years or so to have designed, developed and built whatever it is in the first place.
For those seeking obsolete components, etc, the attitude is that it's only 'obsolete' as far as the manufacturer is concerned. Someone, somewhere is sure to have what you're looking for.
Syzygy
<added>Yes, here's the NYT article from 2002, but you have to pay to read it now:
[nytimes.com...]
For Parts, NASA Boldly Goes . . . on eBay
NASA is trolling Internet, including Yahoo and eBay, to find replacement parts for electronic gear that no one makes anymore; agency recently bought load of outdated medical equipment so it could scavenge Intel 8086 chips--variant of chips that powered IBM's first personal computer, in 1981; 8086 chips played critical role when first shuttle roared into space in 1981, and booster testing still uses 8086 chips; NASA is hoarding 8086's until completion of its $20 million automated checking system...
</added>
goes with the old saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"
I can see where the chips would still be usefull. Why would they want the whole ocean if they only needed one drink.
My husband sometimes drives me crazy with his want for bigger and better. he wants a massivly fast computer with like 200 gig harddrive, 2 17" flat screen monitors just to look at girly pictures and check his e-mail.
he wants a massivly fast computer with like 200 gig harddrive, 2 17" flat screen monitors just to look at girly pictures and check his e-mail.
The Bad news from a Wifes point of view:Just to look at girly pictures
The good news:Just to look at girly pictures
Look it could be worse!
Houston to Shuttle Commander::Well we thought we had but suffered a slight set back
Shuttle Commander to Houston:What sort of, "slight", set back?
Houston to Shuttle Commander: We were outbid at the last second
Humor aside, if it was not such a serious matter, I am sure it has all the makings for a Comedy Movie with perhaps Eddie Murphy
Some equipment may not need the high end technology. It could be just fine with a 20 year old one. For example, everyone probably used a calculator. I don't know what chips they use, but it wouldn't make sense to replace all calculators with news ones that are powered by the latest AMD 64 processor.
A lot of software most likely is written in assembler, which is tightly integrated with the chip. And changing the chip means rewriting all that code.
A lot of recent hardware is done very slopy. All manufacturers trying to cut down the production costs and they use crapy parts and don't test as much as they used to. Do you wonder why a 20 year old computer still works fine, but the one you bought just last year, you had to bring for repair a few times?
I own my computer for 3 years now and I had to replace a few parts already. My computer was built only with genuine parts. But the old 386 worked for 7 years without a single problem.
I own my computer for 3 years now and I had to replace a few parts already. My computer was built only with genuine parts. But the old 386 worked for 7 years without a single problem.
</quote>
my husband had a radio from the 30's maybe 40's that lightup, works and sounded great--granted it's cabnet was non-exsitent--but the one I bought in the early 90's is crap.
We live in a disposable society.
I still have my first computer an old apple IIgs or somthing like that. It worked the last time I plugged it in.
Also the more you complicate something the more places for something to go wrong. Just look at Windows.
When I use mine Im not a million miles up with limited oxygen. I.e no ones life depends on it
When I use mine Im not a million miles up with limited oxygen. I.e no ones life depends on it
I think I would rather trust my life on some simple proven device and not some new complex thing with limited lab testing that may have many undescovered bugs and flaws in it.
Complexity and proven design: An 8086 is WAY less complex than a modern processor. Recall the Pentium bug?
Would YOU enter a spacecraft managed by "Windows Mobile Edition" or "Windows XP"?
By the way: a Boing 747 is also 30 year old design. Its maps are HAND DRAWN!
For a modern microprocessor without "hardening" a cosmic ray hit can change the state of a binary memory cell: with probable fatal consequences. The older chips are less immune to this, but still require some additional protection to be spaceworthy.
.
When they went to the Moon, in the late 1960s, the computer on the orbiter was the size of a fridge, and had the same power as the Sinclair ZX81 (which was the size of a book, costing 100 quid) only 14 years later.
I am actually qualified to fly the 747, and I have never seen any handwritten or drawn "Maps"!
well, as far as I know all the original construction maps. Where "hand drawn" is of course not equivalent to "stenciled", but rather with the use of a drawing machine - as opposed to a CAD drawing.
I know this, because I know the specialty scanner manufacturer ProCaptura from Norway, who sold 3 of their widest scanners (http://www.procaptura.no/pages/scanners/kartoscanfbvls.htm) to Boing in order to digitize plans of some of the older aircraft.
I'm not a native English speaker after all...
Code that works now, on old kit, is NOT going to be rewritten for new computers. The datarate from some deep-space probes is only a few bits per second and the processing overhead is nearly zero. You could probably process it on a ZX81, if you could keep one working long enough.
