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Swedish Carbon-Fiber Stealth Ship Runs NT
tiled_rainbows writes "The Guardian has an article today about the Swedish navy's new stealth warship, which they claim is the largest carbon-fiber vessel ever built. Slashdotters will be interested to learn that the ship runs Windows NT. The article says 'While the point-and-click system is popular with conscripts, the ship was fitted with a wooden ship's wheel at the insistence of senior officers. If Windows goes down, they will still be able to steer.' Which raises the question: where can I get a USB-compatible wooden ship's wheel for my computer?"
US Navy develops new Sasser Torpedo to protect us from Swedish terrorists. Bush feels they are hiding WMD's. Swedish Chef is quoted as saying "We no heeden dur Weaponden den Massen destructnueden. bork! bork! bork!".
I realize you were being cutesy, but making a USB ships wheel sounds about like a one-weekend take-it-apart-and-put-it-together project, starting with a shaft-encoded driving-game controller.
The hardest part would surely be building the binnacle.
How does the Slashdot Effect happen given that no slashdotters ever RTFA?
Where can I get a USB-compatible wooden ship's wheel for my computer
I doubt it's USB since NT4 doesn't support USB.. :P Probably PS2 or a Serial connector :)
Simon
Watch out for the winnuke...
stuff
If not, they should really work on their compatibility.
...
THe bluescreen sunk my battleship!
All sailors do all day is participate in a giant bog hog
Not very stealthy.. all those loud bleeps every time they reboot each hour.
This gives me a great idea for a movie: "Speed 3: Dead in the water".
I think you'll find that the next M$ version of the wooden ship steering wheel will actually require FireWire bandwidth to run...
The stealth effect is kind of ruined, however, when this Swedish ship tries to sneak through the fog at night, but the cook is happily cooking tomorrow's pastries exclaiming "Bork Bork Bork!", which echoes over the waves.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Who knew--a ship that could crash twice.
that the ship runs Windows NT
And really bad eggs.
<insert witty linux comment here>
We require 20 million dollars or we will sink a series of oil ships .....
Steal This Sig
Corvette: A small, fast warship with light armament often used for anti-submarine warfare.
You're old school? I beta tested the motherf***ing abacus!
IIRC, Microsoft was bound to stop support on windows NT 4. Are there any kind of provisions for systems such as this, which is going to be in service for quite some time? Or will the Swedish Navy be on its own if some glitch appears ?
I know that using an old an proven operation system is better because all major bugs have been either wiped out or referenced, still I'm not sure that using a closed source unsupported OS is the smartest way. But maybe they know better ?
altogh it is half baked it works..kinda...and second of all a new warship running on windows gives a new meaning to crash and burn...perhaps they should name it The NTanic
How about USB-controlled torpedo/missile tubes?
That'll _really_ make a WinNuke.
Striking fear in the authors of godawful fanfiction, I am here, appearing in darkness, Tuxedo Jack!
Was probably to be done by a wheel anyway. That it's made out of wood at the request of the officers is probably a nod to tradition.
Are there any pictures are is this submarine really good?
I know you are psychotic, but please make an effort.
.. probably ran on Windows NT, too.
I'm not a materials scientist, but I would imagine that carbon fibre can burn. A huge advantage of steel is that it may weaken under heat stress, but it will never contribute to a fire, which is one of the gravest threats to a warship in combat.
The British learned this lesson the hard way in the Falklands. In that case the new building material was aluminum, which can actually burn when it gets hot enough. This contributed to the loss of several ships which suffered massive fires after being hit by Argentinian aircraft. As a result, not only in the UK but in navies around the world, new naval ships are built entirely out of steel.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
"Captain, everything is in order; the heads-up display shows nothing but blue seas ahead."
Clippy: It looks like you're trying to kill someone. Are you aware of the Geneva convention? Capt'n: Duh! Bork Bork !@#! Bork Americans !?
Hmmm, try when it goes down...
Captain: Hoist the mainsail and hard ta starboard, ye scurvy dogs! Arrrgh!
Crew: Cap'n, we cannot! We've run aground on that accursed Blue Screen of Death again!
"There is no teacher but the enemy."-Mazer Rackham
CREWMAN: "Captain, the reactor is beginning to overheat, but we can't fix it yet. It may go critical before we regain control." CAPTAIN: "What?" CREWMAN: "Well, sir, every system on the ship just BSOD'd and we're waiting for the reactor control computers to reboot." CAPTAIN: "Abandon Ship!" At least this is the Swedish Navy, so we can assume non-nuclear power.
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
Next up, homemade bridge for seafaring game, complete with a computer controlled salt water sprayer. I can't wait.......
And if you thought that was boring you obviously havn't read my Journal ;-)
Wouldn't that be: "from the ctrl-alt-del-to-rudder-amid-ship-dept."
...when I was in the Coast Guard in the middle '90s the computers onboard my ship ran CTOS - Convergent Technology Operating System. On 286s and (if you were lucky) 386s. Very slow, very crashy.
The Army reading list
better watch out for those NBT broadcasts....
"Omnis tuus capsa sunt inesse nos"
let them just hope they didn't install the optional WiFi option, or for that matter, any internet connection. And what about EMP? Or Microsofts Patented Random Error Generator System?
"Sonar.exe has generated errors and will now be closed"
-Tim Louden
W2K == NT5 (and XP == NT5.1 if I'm not mistaken)
New things are always on the horizon
Windows 2000 is still referred to as NT 5.0.
It maybe just a typo by a non-geek. He has NT4 on his workstation where he typed this piece.
I thought slashdot would no better. Check for blinders (linux) before posting.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The first thing I'd do is wipe it and install Linux.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
Nope, it'll be bluetooth. Which means it won't work, and people will be able to steal its address book entries... ;-)
"Ah'm sorry, Cap'n, for some reason the ship's wheel has paired itself with my mobile phone instead of the ship."
PocketGamer.org - For the gamer on the go!
Funky lookin' ship pics
Just look for the ship running in circles in the middle of the North Sea. "Ensign Chef, I said CTRL-ALT-DELETE, now!" "Bork bork bork!"
Amazing that a country would trust their armed forces to a piece of software made in another country.
Of course I don't know the last time Sweden went to war but still.
evil is as evil does
Last I knew, Windows NT didn't support USB devices.
blah, blah, blah
I wonder if the EU - whose members are now using Windows servers to run their military hardware - will continue to push MicroSoft to release their source code to competitors?
Sounds like the EU AntiTrust ship might just turn around, after receiving orders from EU defense brass. The type of people who wanted the "real" steering wheel might not be too excited in an open source battleship.
Ryan Kennedy opposes comm
Taipei Times Picture of the Visby.
Detailed Article including Construction Information and many pictures.
This reminds me of another swedish warship which was said to be "a floating work of art and a weapon of war". It was called Vasa. Quoting the article: "...The Vasa sank within one nautical mile of the start of her maiden voyage in 1628 before she even left the Stockholm archipelago..."
Shortly after they installed nt, all the rats on the ship disappeared.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
Not that any hit is good, but imagine what will happen when this thing takes a hit of any kind or has a fire. Carbon fiber dust floats around like grain dust and the body likes it about as much as asbestos. When I was doing Fire Fighting for the US Air Force, occasionally, we would have the opportunity to cut into / chop up an F-16 that had made a "critical navigational error" and it was always respirator only work because of fiber dust.
can be found here.
Stealth ship, my ass. I'll believe it when I see it.
Oh, wait...
Wenn ist das Nunstueck git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput.
The boat is named Visby and pics of it can be found here and here /Björn
Worldwide piracy is still a big problem though I doubt there's much of it in the Baltic. This ship will be able to perform the Swedish Navy's annual sneak attacks on codfish and herring using anti sub bombs much more efficiently.
Back in May 1997, the US fitted the USS YORKTOWN (http://www.yorktown.navy.mil/ ) with NT and it had disastrous results (http://www.gcn.com/archives/gcn/1998/july13/cov2. htm ) . The ship went DIW (dead in the water) for a few hours. This is the worst case scenario for any ship's captain (and their career)...
Guess it took this long to work out the bugs... Not bad - only 7 years!
"Omnis tuus capsa sunt inesse nos"
Im the only one who remebers the Navy's blue screen of death fiasco.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Excuse my lack of Nautical Terms, but you get the idea.
Navigator: Captain, radar is picking up an iceberg 2 Nautical miles ahead, just off the port bow.
Captain: No problem, that's plenty of time to steer clear.
Captain clicks the navigation display on NT
Clippy: It seems you are trying to steer, what would you like to do?
Navigator: Captain, Icberg 1 mile ahead
Captain: (showing frustration) clicks Steer Starboard
Captain: This should handle it!
Clippy: How many degrees starboard would you liek to steer?
Captain uttering swedish curse words, clicks 10 degrees
Navigator Captain, Iceberg at 400 meters
Clippy: You clicked Turn Starboard and 15 degrees, it seems you are trying to evade an Iceberg. Windows NE (Nautical Edition) has several new features, just for this.
Clippy: Would you like to enable the "Evade Iceburg" Wizard?
Captain: $^@#$#%*, runs up to the wooden ships wheel
Captain: See, this is why the tried and true method works! turns the wheel
Windows NE has detected a new device and is unable to find a driver for it.
Captain: Aha! my son warned me about this, I have the driver right here!
Windows NE: Windows NE has finished installing drivers for the device "Ships Wheel", in order to use this device you must restart windows. Click here to restart, or if you wish to restart later click cancel.
Sharks: Break out the hotsauce fellas, here comes dinner
If the Visby really does turn out to be more cost-efficient than a steel ship, some maritime analysts believe that it could be a matter of time before merchant vessels begin to be made from tough plastics.
I've had a little yellow plastic duck toy that has been chewed into fervently by my pet dog for years and years, and the thing STILL stays afloat no problem. I think the Swedes are on the right track here.
The problem with stealth ships on the sea is that they leave a blank spot on the radar where there should be echos for the waves.
More than enough BS
I'd worry less about it running NT and more about it's structural integrity. They'll soon learn what many automotive enthusiates have learned. Although Carbon Fiber has it's advantages(light weight, looks cool, non-metal, etc), it also has several disadvantages. Carbon fiber tends to be very tempermental to temperature changes, and will crack easily with severe cold/heat. Also, although carbon fiber is fairly flexable, it's still brittle. It's doesn't crack when impacted, it shatters.
Actually, you can get third-party cards and drivers that allow NT4 to use USB just fine.
So does the ship have to dock monthly to get windows updates? If it's stealth, it can't be using standard wireless 802.11 technology to get updates. Imagine all the new game for all those bored fishermen (fisherpersons?)---warfishing.
Maybe the USS MS Dingy will ferry out updates to the cruiser.
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
But has a blue screen another meaning on a ship?
Any OS can be stable out of the box. In my experience, the OS is fine, but it's some of the crap programs that cause instability.
And I highly doubt the control system would be exposed to any wild internet.
NT isn't a current product, how did they get a copy of it. Instead of 2003, or XP.. ?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The article states that they had to create new techniques for cutting the material during construction, but if this gets hit with a mine/torpedo/exocet, will it shatter? If not, how would they fix the leaks w/o being able to weld a new piece of steel over the hole(s) to keep it afloat until it makes it back to the shipyard?
Visualize Whirled Peas
Captain: Fire control, engage hostile target 1004 range 2000 yds with 5 inch main battery.
Fire Control: Sir, unable to engage target 1004 the system has encountered a VB runtime error 91 object variable not set.
Captain: Engine room ahead all full make turns for
30 knots.
Engine Room: Sir we keep getting a RPC failure in the gas turbine controller.
Captain: All hands abandon ship!
Got Code?
Captain of this ship to captain of other ship:
yo dawg, i totally installed a carbon fiber hull, and check out the system, i replaced the stock head unit with a Windows machine! its mad tyte yo! now i'm gonna put a Type-R sticker on the back, trick out the propulsion system with NAWWWWWS and go huntin fer 'stangs, werd, peace out
May you be touched by His Noodly Appendage. RAmen.
You want a wooden wheel, well to start you can contact H&L Marine Woodwork, Rancho Dominguez, CA
H_Lmarinewoodwork.com
Let me know how it integrates.....it sure will be pretty.....
I hope using NT works out better for them than it did for the U.S. Navy
I for one don't want to be near a MS WNT-run vehicle, much less such a lethal one.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
Nah, it's called Windows for Warships. It's even got a customised clippy... "It looks like you are trying to fire an intercontinental ballistic missile? Would you like me to f*ck it up for you?"
During combat it becomes necessary to increase your rate of fire to ensure the destruction of enemy vessels. Microsoft does not endorse the use of this software on fishing boats, pleasure craft, or walruses.
From the Control Panel select "Forward Cannon." Right click on the cannon and select "Properties." From the "Firing Rate" tab make sure the "Fire at will" option, and click the apply button. If the ship does not begin firing type "Regedit" at the command prompt. Under "HKEY_CLASSES_LOCAL_MACHINE" search for "Fire Control" and make sure the is a "Fire Control" entry in the registry. If necessary, load the Forward Cannon 1.3 install CD and double click the fcannon.reg file.
Once the cannon is installed, you may choose to test-fire a round. You will be prompted with a dialog asking if the target was hit. Clicking on No will take you to a web page with possible reasons (non of which will actually apply) as to why the target was missed. Some targets are not compatible with Windows and cannot be hit with the forward Gun.
Leave the gun, take the cannoli -- Clemenza, The Godfather
What else would you use on a stealth ship? The color of water in the ocean is "blue" and the most typical color of a Windows NT server monitor is blue from the BSOD. If the Swedes ever get in combat say against Iceland, Santa Claus or Greenpeace and they find that they need to hide from their enemy, they can just launch Internet Explorer, cause a BSOD by clicking on the address bar and blend in to the deep blue sea.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
From the article:
And if it is detected, the Visby should be quick enough to escape as it is only half as light as a conventional corvette.
In other words, its great weight makes it _more_ likely to avoid attacks -- perhaps by escaping downhill.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
The good: A lightweight, stealth ship. I'd love to have one. I have no need for one, but it would be cool. (I'd rather have a lightweight, stealth car, esp. if it came with a retractable 57mm cannon!) Do we have any idea how well CF will really hold up in this case, though? Both in long term maneuvers and under attack by enemy aircraft? What about barnacles? OK, the good we don't know for sure.
The bad: Let's see, didn't the US Navy already experience a problem with an NT4-based ship being dead in the water? And a dead ship can't maneuver. If there are other ships around, that's not a good time to be invisible. (Captain of aircraft carrier: "What was that crunchy sound?")
The ugly (editing): "And if it is detected, the Visby should be quick enough to escape as it is only half as light as a conventional corvette." Presumably they meant half as heavy!
So, the ship doesn't go down with the captain.
Seeing bad movies only encourages them. Watch responsibly
It's a mine sweeper. I'm sure there's a joke here somewhere..
It might be the one pointed out by the Guinness book cited in the article, hence the various James Bond jokes as well as the Taiwan interest ; indeed, the french stealth frigate appears at the beginning of the last (or before-last) 007 movie, and it was sold to Taiwan by Thomoson , giving rise to a huge financial crisis. The frigate is however not made of carbon.
I hope the frigate has a lower radar signature than a 1970s Volvo...
Google passes Turing test : see my journal
USS Yorktown dead in water
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
Well, I can only assume that for something this important, they've been building it and testing it for several years...
...but not in the "NT doesn't work with gadget/program foo.bar 2000" sense. For a stripped down military installation, I'm sure there's support options.
I don't know of anyone offering commercial support for say the 2.0.x kernel either, but if someone wanted to use it in a battleship, I'm sure the support would appear. Microsoft isn't dumber than that they'd offer it too.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
People have been building boats from fibreglass for a long time. There is no difference between working with CF and working with fibreglass - it's just that CF is stronger and more expensive (and thus more difficult to cut).
Also, if you use the technique the Sweedes used (sandwich expandable foam between two CF layers), the hull is alot more buoyant than a steel hull - which means you can change the shape (within reason) to a more stealthy version.
Modification would be a bitch though! If you want to weld a new bracket to a steel hull it takes 5min from the inside or a few hours to do externally. If you try the same thing on a CF hull, it takes a few hours (12?) for the CF resin to go off. Forget trying to modify the exterior hull without a drydock. Also, in the event of wartime damage repairs you can weld a new plate over the hull and have it watertight and you are good to go. No chance with CF - it needs a completely dry environment (assuming you even have enough raw CF & resin in the first place - you can't just reuse old sections)
since they know NT will crash, they have already planned ahead. good job. now, send us your bikini team.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
I find it weird that so many Gov agencies use Windows NT.
The CIA uses WIN NT.
Oh shit whos that at my door...
AcmeShells.com The cheapest Eggdrop
They just don't want to get accidentally electrocuted from the metal wheel when the power comes back on... since everything else on that ship is probably non-conductive...
.. thought it said "Carbon-Filter" Stealth Ship. I was thinking,
Gee, what military strength -- the most powerful Brita water filtration system to rule the seas. Taste the difference.
does it have minesweeper?
Here's how they fix the problem. Trash the whole Windoze system and install Linux or MacOSX or BSD or some other flavor of Unix.
Bungie demoed its "Pimps at Sea" game with a USB ship's wheel.
Why do the swedes need a stealthy warship?
I think they will make a play for their empire
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of- Not in the face NOT IN THE FACE!!!
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
If Windows goes down, they go down. All in the same boat, remember?
more ms bashing food for the bandwagon riding linux noob kiddies (and the self apointed bandwagon hate-mongers from slashdot)
slashdot, the ms bashing site, where linux flaws and bugs are ignored...
if the mods want to ban me, fine, only shows I am right, and the only defense they have is censorship of the TRUTH!
karma, hah...
Agree. Also, today, ships running MS products in critical applications is hardly news.
I don't know anything about this, which is why I ask...
I RTFA and it mentions being less visible to radar, infrared, etc but says nothing about sonar detection. Isn't sonar a big way of tracking warships? Is this still going to be vulnerable to that?
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.
"from the ctrl-alt-del-to-log-in dept." ...should that have been:
"ctrl-alt-del-to-captain's-log(again) dept."?
According to what little info is avialable from Janes The ship is one of two which were initially ordered in 1995. Military procurement being what it is, no matter where you go, the ships were probably designed with NT in mind, circa '95. However, I doubt NT will last longer than the first refit or post-sea trials.
The US and UK navies are both experimenting with a number of computer-control options ranging from MS solutions, to various *nixen. Of course there is the now aporcyphal story of the NT crash that put the USS Yorktown dead in the water. Short answer, it may have been built on the NT platform, but lots of replacement systems exist now and I doubt NT will survive long enough for the ship to enter the active list.
"Being Irish, he possessed an abiding sense of tragedy which sustained him through brief episodes of joy." -W. B.
I hope that their version of Battle Stations isn't Code Red. ;) The constant scanning that Code Red causes will give away their position. Then again, they'll take down all other ships in the area that are using Windows, so it might prove to be a more effective attack platform that we're giving them credit for! ;)
You must be the change you wish to see in the world - Ghandi
Of course!
My SIG is a P226
You insensitive clod!
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I was actually more interested in learning about the Stealth capabilities than the fact it was running NT. When did Slashdot become a source purely for OS considerations? ;)
;)
NERDS UNITE! PRESERVATION OF COOL TECHNOLOGY!
Hi, I noticed you're attempting to open fire. Would you like to:
A: Declare war!
B: Send a bouquet of flowers?
C: Trigger the ship's self destruct?
D: Open the e-mail attachment titled "HotPix.pif"?
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
Perhaps you meant voila
(yes, there should be an accent on the a - too lazy to look it up).
Actually windows runs rather well on embedded devices. I remember using Win2000 on my last job - it was on a DLA! (Digital logic analyzer) by Agilent.
Perhaps it's the added benefit of a tried and tested system - been around for years and most of the bugs have been patched/found/fixed.
But I'm sure they have some special deal with MS. Money would hardly be an issue for them (fas in forking it out for licenses), so perhaps the only reason for picking MS over Linux would probably be some level of support promised by MS (or even publicity).
Yea. I know.
Forget
Blue Screen of Death
we now have
War Ship of Death
And if it is detected, the Visby should be quick enough to escape as it is only half as light as a conventional corvette.
So.... is it twice as heavy as a conventional corvette?
Military use of Windows NT will likely bring new meaning to the old phrase "blue screen of death".
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
Amazed nobody has mentioned this. The US has had a stealth ship for quite a while now - a direct spinoff of the Stealth Fighter/Bomber program. http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/sea_shadow .htm for a few more details. Don't think it runs NT though!
Is also a pretty good Pogues album.
http://www.marinen.mil.se/article.php?id=2596 And i guess the U.S Movie Industrie will never se the difference between German people and Swedish. This whole 'Helga' BS is getting boring.
Going Berserk.
to Blue Screen of Death....
Twin or more? ITA
Apache/Spring/La
Is it just me or does that sound like "When Windows goes down, they will still be able to steer"?
diegoT
Here's a signature that I used for a while for this very ship:
In days long gone, the captain used to go down with his ship. Now that Windows NT is running Navy warships, the ships go down all by themselves.
"I never get lost because everybody tells me where to go"
... that WinNT would become such a popular war gaming plattform?
the wooden steering wheel.
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
Don't laugh, it keeps the fish out...
(sorry, couldn't help myself)
Back in May 1997, the US fitted the USS YORKTOWN (http://www.yorktown.navy.mil/ ) with NT and it had disastrous results (http://www.gcn.com/archives/gcn/1998/july13/cov2. htm ) . The ship went DIW (dead in the water) for a few hours. This is the worst case scenario for any ship's captain (and their career)...
Funnily enough, both the commanding office and the officer in charge of that project went on the record to state that the problem was not with NT.
How many OS crashes do you know which can be fixed by - and I quote - "replacing the value in one of the fields with something other than zero"?
If the OS had crashed, you would not be able to replace the value in the field.
God you slashdot guys are sheep. Don't you ever check the veracity of the crap that you spread?
Coming soon - pyrogyra
For the Surface Warfare guys prestige is a big deal, a traditional cruiser has a crew of 100 on duty at anyone time, the Sea Shadow had a on duty crew of 4, and a total compliment of 10. That and the ship (and it's crew) would have been top secret killed the program. But would have helped the Navy IMO.
With the Sea Shadow taking the picket air defense role, they would have had 200+ sailors that they could have put in other roles, for example the Arsenal ships.
I am truly surprised that another nation would start a stealth ship program, since primarily it would have only have a war time, during peace keeping operations stealth is all but worthless.
just wondering... does the wooden wheel have force feedback support?
-- All Gods were immortal.
-- S. Lem
You must have an enterprise license, ( which of course I'm sure they do have... ) but I still believe you are encouraged to upgrade to current versions, via a 'grace period'. Small business or retail customers don't get this 'privilege'
That may have changed, its been a while since I've touched an enterprise MOLP. They are evil.
( actually the main post was more of a joke.. not to be taken too seriously )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
First a story about the Mexican Air Force. Then a story about the Swedish Navy. I can't wait for Friday's piece on Luxemburg's Army and their Linux distro.
Nice try on the redirect. There ain't no way my work computer will let me go to a site with the work kock in the title!
...minesweeper runs Windows!
Don't know why the editors didn't include the image, but here's the image of the ship http://homepage.tinet.ie/~steven/images/visby3.jpg .
The operation timed out when attempting to contact www.yorktown.navy.mil.
Looks like they still haven't got over their NT toothing problems.
Finally something that can get the coffee stains out of my mug!
"We need a fourth law of Robotics: Stop Fingering My Wife"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Does it run Li... o ... ok ...
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
The american navy perhaps? :-)
More seriously, the article states the swedish navy routinely cooperates with other NATO and EU navies, so international missions would be assumed.
and went with Linux on Apple Xserve's. I know I would fee much safer in a submarine running on more robust PPC hardware then x86. And just about any OS is more stable then NT 4. What were these people thinking? It had to be a big political stunt. Some MS goons lobby some Swedish politicians, and wham, you have yourself a new sub "powered by NT"(tm).
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
Well, I'm sorry to say that the whole story can't raise the "USB wheel" question, since Windows NT doesn't support USB.
:p
So there.
NT
More info and facts here:
http://www.fmv.se/index.asp?K=005003&L=se
The link that says "Bilder Visbykorvetten" will take you to a picture gallery.
Windows NT does not support USB
I suppose that gives Blue Screen Of Death a new meaning :)....
Swedish Carbon-Fiber Stealth FISH Runs NT
I must have Swedish Fish on the brain...
Yes the Swiss are landlocked but:
Swiss - people from Switzerland
Swedish - people from Sweden
American geography education....
The Poles with their ridiculous screen doors on their submarines, and now the Swedes running Windows NT on their ships! What is this world coming to?!
An Extract from the Windows NT license agreement
This is an extract from the Windows NT license agreement... (there wasn't any copyright on the license agreement...)
[...]
7. NOTE ON Java SUPPORT. THE SOFTWARE PRODUCT CONTAINS SUPPORT FOR PROGRAMS WRITTEN IN Java. Java TECHNOLOGY IS NOT FAULT TOLERANT AND IS NOT DESIGNED, MANUFACTURED, OR INTENDED FOR USE OR RESALE AS ON-LINE CONTROL EQUIPMENT IN HAZARDOUS ENVIRONMENTS REQUIRING FAIL-SAFE PERFORMANCE, SUCH AS IN THE OPERATION OF NUCLEAR FACILITIES, AIRCRAFT NAVIGATION OR COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS, AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL, DIRECT LIFE SUPPORT MACHINES, OR WEAPONS SYSTEMS, IN WHICH THE FAILURE OF Java TECHNOLOGY COULD LEAD DIRECTLY TO DEATH, PERSONAL INJURY, OR SEVERE PHYSICAL OR ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE.
[...]
Damn! And I was so looking forward to managing my nuclear arsenal with Java....
No, but the Swedes are! Run for the hills!
The ship includes a command and control centre that uses a Windows NT operating system. The Swedes insist that this will not make the vessel vulnerable to hacker attacks, although the navy will not be drawn on the potential for the system - armed with hi-tech cannon and missiles - to crash.
Yeah, not vulnerable? Just wait until some dumb ass downloads "Bonzi Buddy". "You're a WINNER! Click here to launch a missle!"
It also redefines the term "spyware."
"And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'" - HST
If you really want to keep people away from it, run NT 3.51.
Apparently the Swedes did not learn from the US Navy's experience of using NT to run the ship. Not a good thing to be dead in the water because a computer crashed. IIRC, in Microsoft's EULA it specifically says not for use in critical systems.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
in a comment that's sure to get lots of bashing, a properly hardened NT is actually very stable. I've seen one NT firewall that survived power outages multiple times with no error whatsoever. That, and heavy traffic from inside and outside.
The trick for a stable NT is the installation process. MS tends to give default installation of NTs with lots of irrelevant apps (who in the hell actually uses Paint in servers?)
I hate MS as much as the next poster in slashdot, but hate to say this, NT is actually a pretty good OS if properly administered. Most NT hater I've seen usually comes from UNIX background. They tend to make NT crash because default install of NT is quite unsecured.
Shouldn't it be, um, the Invisby?
Just goes to show how reliable Windows products are..... and how antiquated they are that can be backed up using a WOODEN WHEEL. LOL.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
Stealth is a waste of money for the Swedish Navy anyhow; it seems this ship's mission, like all other seagoing Swedish vessels, is to sail back and forth between Stockholm and Helsinki in order to give Swedish people a place to buy cheaper booze than System Bolaget.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
I would be careful about making fun of the NT OS if you're onboard the ship, otherwise the captian might replace you with a very small conscript!
Sad, but my first thought upon seeing the pictures is that the teams designing the next generation of naval combat sims are scratching their heads, or maybe amused that it turns out Battlezone really was a vision of the future.
Bught it long time ago.
I'm not sure I agree, given the changing nature of warfare and weapons, but it reminds me of a tour of a new (Spruance class?) destroyer I was given as a midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy in the seventies. The tour guide pointed out the limited weaponry and the aluminum superstructure, then enumerated the extensive electronic detection gear, concluding: "that means she can't fight worth a damn, but we'll know exactly who's blowing us out of the water!"
Albeit it would have ot be very high pressure water pistol.... I wonder if this will lead to new wepaons technolgy based on water pressure... Bring out the SuperSoakers!
Was it SP4 with the famous NSA_key?
So the NSA already has access to the onboard kitchen menu!
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
They're taking advantage of NT's numerous "features." You see, the blue screens blend in with the color of the ocean. The crashing is by design after all!
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
The only good thing about running NT, is that Linux, BSD, and other better OSs will run on the same hardware.
i sby/
Here is another good link:
http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/v
Tim
Should be no problem.
Wooden steering wheel for ships are available in many shops.
The wheel sensor of a mouse provides the input device.
A custom HID device (USB) is easily built.
Put them on one side. Take the HMS Ark Royal, a small aircraft carrier from the modern Royal Navy. Put that on the other side. Which side wins?
The German in the Type XXI submarine packing active and passive SONAR, accoustic and wireguided torpedoes with power assisted loading, a truely effective whisper mode that defeats allied passive sonar and accoustic torpedoes and the capability to remain submerged for days on end? The Royal Navy got a very rude shock when they finally got their hands on one of them. Thankfully these boats came to late but they are the early ancestors of modern subs.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
a US stealth bomber, who would win? Or for that matter, who would find whom first?
Have you ever looked at how conventional warships are made (I've toured thru BIW). There is a lot of welding. A real lot. These ships usually have one or more machine shops on board and everything is fixed with a pipe wrench or by welding. I can just see the machinist's mate taking an oxyacetylene torch to the ships carbon fiber frame.
Thnx, but i was going for funny.
The blue screen of death will blend right in with the water!
Brilliant!
The combat managment system here,9LV Mark3E from celsiustech/saabtech, is already in common use. I think they have sold some 50 systems to like 8 or 9 countries and i haven't heard of bluescreen issues yet. Here's a link (in english) to the product. 9LVMK3E
Sadly the Stealth capabilities are not quite as good as you'd think since there is a HUGE 'Designed for Microsoft Windows NT' metalic sticker covering both sides of the ship. I sure hope they keep this yacht patched up.
Imagine a linux warship. Each captain / officer could bring their own distro and boot it off the cd. The only real question would be to run it from the command line or not. And think of the support avail able to the ships crew via mailing lists and irc.
And could you imagine a beowulf cluster of these things?
If you get a USB wooden wheel, you're probably going to have problems finding a driver for NT...
this sig limit is too small to put anything good h
...like Escher designed it. ;)
Minesweeper Certified Professional needed for mission critical environment, Fast paced , high stress. solitaire skills optional.
applicant must show proficiency on a minesweeper field of 2394781203471029347823 squares wide by 32104987123458913240129348 across.
Lets Flamebait someone that told what the article really stated that the ship was dead in the water because of experimental software that wasn't written by microft. It had nothing to do with windows and even captain testified to this. You can keep covering eyes and say Windows is unstable but reality it isn't, reply with your contradictions but its meanless since windows is being used by everything. If Windows wasn't stable no one would use it. Its in atms, cars, boats, game consoles and sterios.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
Seriously.. why would they go to the effort to create a top-of-the-line warship when the time comes that they NEED it, it will no longer be top-of-the-line? It will be just your average joe ship or possibly worse. Why not just build what's cheap now, and build that ship when it's cheaper later?
Then again I suppose you have to account for the fear/bragging options.
You're nothing; like me.
How come none of the younger croud are asking about the whole bork bork thing. I haven't seen The Muppet Show in years (at least 10).
My recollection of the song:
e bork urstay
oom ba dinky doo
e bork urstay
oom be um bork bork bork
Your monitor is staring at you.
NT is known for freezing for periods of up to 10 seconds (maybe more?) at random intervals, quite probably while it defrags the mess it has got its memory into. The same problem happens with Win2000 and I have also seen longish freezes in XP. Controlling a ship, or anything lese for that matter, needs hard real time.
Not only that, in most countries, evidently not Sweden, the software would have to be capable of validation and verification to a suitable standard, that can of course only be accomplished if you have source. The currently fashionable standard assigns criticality levels Sil1 to SIL4, now NT can't even meet SIL1 (SIL4 is the highest, mandatory in life-threatening situations). Previously, lots of people followed the aircraft industry in assigning levels 1,2,3,4 or A,B,C and D (in these cases 1 or A was required in potentially life-threatening cases). An extra level, Z, was introduced, guess why?
I once upon a time thought that the Swedes were generally competent, however with the JAS39 Grippen, and now this, I think that their defence industry has become a complete joke. I could tell you about their SAAB civil aircraft, fortunately they are out of production now.....
"First Linux-based Battleship Built, And Darl McBride Claims He Owns It"
Intelligence is like four wheel drive, having it just means you'll get stuck in more remote places.
The Swedish navy makes its big-screen debut with "Das Reboot".
how is it possible for something that broadcasts NBT all of the place to be considered "stealth"? :P
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
....if this ever becomes a remotely controlled "spam zombie".
This is a link to kockums, the builder of the ship. Visby
Can someone post it's IP address so we can show the folly of using MS products?
Don't forget Windows NT does not support USB officially. So no USB wheel for you... :P
7. note on java support. the software product may contain support for programs written in java. java technology is not fault tolerant and is not designed, manufactured, or intended for use or resale as on-line control equipment in hazardous environments requiring fail-safe performance, such
as in the operation of nuclear facilities, aircraft navigation or communication systems, air traffic control, direct life support machines, or weapons systems, in which the failure of java technology could lead directly to death, personal injury, or severe physical or environmental damage.
Interesting that they pawn this all off on Java and not anything having to do with Microsoft.
but does it pass the elk test?
from the looks of it, the vessel in question appears to be a non-threat('nt?) for sonar, and radar based targeting systems.
i'm considering that thermal, and optical targeting systems will have no problems at all.
from a logistical point, foggy days look like 'good' days.
A handwritten note to the CIA reading "Just wait a few hours".
Life is like surrealism: if you have to have it explained to you, you can't afford it.
If the Titanic was running NT.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
From the Swede's I would have expected a little more trust in his product (even though he's a Fin).
But then someone else explained the budgetary problems of the Swedish armed forces so I suspect it was all financed by Redmond.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
lighter and faster than a conventional ship and almost invisible to enemy detection.
As long as the enemy isn't in an airplane looking out the window.
That's because half of them are at the Vatican.....wearing funny costumes!
When development descitions is trusted to a bunch of baffoons in suits with no education or clue whatsoever what they're doing - just following the latest buzzwords. The "IT" industry needs to grow up.
I guess rather than welding it they'd be using epoxy to repair? At least that's what we do with R/C planes that use carbon fiber (well, usually you replace the carbon fiber completely when it breaks -- not an option for a ship made of it.)
Dear Sweden,
After a lot of careful consideration, we, the people of the United States of America have decided to propose a collaboration of sorts.
For every swedish woman we are sent in good health and of legal age we will send one well-trained High School computer dork to assist with your new warfare projects. Our computer nerds are by far the most experienced in dealing with BSODs and downloading new drivers for your ships. They are also content with being paid in meatballs, as it is rumored that yours are of top quality. Send all inquiries as to where to send women to Wasuremon0.
We look forward to making the world a better place with you,
-The USA
Yes, but who outside the IT world even know that is the case, let alone use it in conversation? Not many.
Most business types would just look at you funny.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
i gotta find the ip to this thing. wonder if they have AV installed or if i could slip BO2K or netbus in. that would be 1 hell of a remote control boat.
NT is one of the only operating systems the FDA approves for class 2 (and higher, I think) medical devices. It's funny to say Windows NT bombs out all the time, but that's mostly because of driver issues. The fact remains that for embedded/turnkey applications, NT is about as stable an OS as you can get. It got that job by replacing OS/2 (in ATM software, etc) not by replacing a UNIX platform.
Mod me down if you want, but you know it'd be abusive, and this is totally on-topic.
Wasn't there some kind of Kevlar-like fiber used in the frame of the craft that carried Spirit and Opportunity that was selected specifically for it's low temperature performance? I think I remember that it was a relatively new specialty material.
Of course if the Baltic gets as cold as space, they better concentrate on installing stealth skates on the Visby.
Why do I have this? I don't smoke.
You are a "slashdot guy", sheepie.
Now grab your metal stucco Stealth Ship. If you don't have a metal stucco Stealth Ship......Use carbon-fiber stucco Stealth Ship!
Now parge the ship.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Nuff said.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
"If Windows goes down" -> "when Windows goes down", as anyone who's ever run Windows surely knows. And in this case, not only does the captain go down with the ship, the ship goes down with his network.
--
make install -not war
Since when is "carbon fiber" a super strong "Platic"?
--JLockard - "Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps." - Emo Phillips
Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes....
If someone passes a law against the ship, I imagine it will still keep afloat... wait, did you mean ordnance?
Sean
Sonar detection is mostly done from surface ships vs. subs, subs vs. subs, or subs vs. surface ships. There are two types: active & passive. Active sonar is when the searching ship transmits a ping into the water, and listens for reflected pings. From the timing and direction of the reflected ping, you can tell where the target is. Both carbon fiber and traditional steel hulls can be fitted with countermeasures that dampen reflections (think rubberized tiles mounted to the hull), but neither is particularly stealthy to reflected sound without them. Passive sonar is when the searching ship listens for frequencies likely to be emitted in the course of normal operation of the ship. For example, US ships emit a 60 Hz line from the sound of their electric generators (while European ships emit 50 hz lines from the same equipment). Again, both types of ship can be fitted with countermeasures that minimize the transmission of sound from the ship into the water (think rubber bushings/isolation mounts on your generators), but neither is particularly stealthy without them. Bottom line: carbon fiber probably doesn't make much difference in sonar detection. Sean
Sean
...by the famous NT console bug.
Funnily enough, both the commanding office and the officer in charge of that project went on the record to state that the problem was not with NT.
...
How about this?
Here's the relevant text from their outline:
Source of the Bug:
Who is to Blame?
Windows NT:
Anthony DiGiorgio, a civilian engineer with the Atlantic Fleet Technical Support Center in Norfolk
Ron Redman, deputy technical director of the Fleet Introduction Division of the Aegis Program Executive Office
The crash was caused by the inability of the OS to properly handle division by zero.
"Using Windows NT, which is known to have some failure modes, on a warship is similar to hoping that luck will be in our favor," DiGiorgio
Redman agrees with him, but he is more careful in casting blame
Why?
Who is to Blame?
The application program:
Lieutenant Commander Roderick Fraser, the chief engineer on Yorktown at the time of the system shut-down
Harvey McKelvey, former director of navy programs for CAE Electronics
"The fault was with certain applications that were developed by CAE Electronics in Leesburg" Fraser
"If you want to put a stick in anybody's eye, it should be in ours." McKelvey
They didn't use the right version of the software - the latest version would have prevented this problem
"Because of politics, some things are being forced on us that without political pressure we might not do, like Windows NT" Redman
While I have a hard time finding data on exactly what was done during the fix (I get the impression that the Navy was a bit closed-mouth about all of this), it seems that a reboot was part of the procedure.
May we never see th
The army, air force and navy all run NT in Sweden. Having been a communications technician as a conscript I was trained in NT and worked with it while stationed in Kosovo. There are plans to move to something else, indeed, we did user XP on welfare computers. This was possible because of the number of bundled licenses th army had aquired over time. Not a wish to invest in XP infrastructure. Running NT was a lot of work, especialy on "field" hardware which fromm the start required specialised drivers. We did however use UNIX a little, SCO UNIX. =)
The joker in the deck however is this; The radar involved is a high frequency short ranged radar normally used to search for submarine periscopes and masts. The general rule of thumb for EW work is that you can detect an active sensor twice as far as he can detect you. (Simple physics, if a radar is bouncing off something ten miles away, the signal actually travels twenty miles to reach the receiver, ten miles to and ten miles back.)
This results in a difficult tactical problem for the stealth vessel. It can 'hear' the searching enemy, and develop a track and possibly a target solution. However to fire on the enemy, or to send a signal to vector in other assets, it has to break stealth. If it breaks stealth, it can be detected. If it manages to kill the target before the target gets off a contact report, the fact that a hunter failed to return tells the hunters boss that *something* is hostile, active, and in the hunters assigned area.
Stealth isn't magic, and simply killing a nearby enemy may not lead to a desireable outcome.
Worldwide piracy is still a big problem though I doubt there's much of it in the Baltic.
If they had insufficient valid NT licenses, would be obliged to hoist the Jolly Roger?
with Windows NT's swap file usage.
... or do they just use it in safe mode all the time?
And another thing, does that mean they now require admin rights to access advanced features of the ship
m.mmm..myyy
Right...like the rest of us wouldn't want one, too. Why in the world would you post something as dumb as this?
And Jesus Christ, boy, that was incoherent. Have you taken your Ritalin today?
Not to be picky, but...
"Which raises the question: where can I get a USB-compatible wooden ship's wheel for my computer?"
Windows NT doesn't support USB natively!
http://www.gcn.com/archives/gcn/1998/november9/6.h tm
""Now that we know what can happen, we've realized how to bring the
system back quickly," Petty Officer 1st Class Phillip Cramer said. "All
we have to do is change the zero to any number, and everything comes
right back up.""
Coming soon - pyrogyra
And server 2003 is NT 5.2
I'd rather be lucky than good.
> "AEGIS or no AEGIS, defence against over-the-horizon anti-ship-missile attacks is nearly impossible."
True, if all you have is a missile cruiser. But proper fleet defense uses overlapping layers. You start with an aircraft carrier whose interceptors and AWACS planes can detect and engage intruders hundreds of miles from the fleet. If any get through, there's the AEGIS umbrella to deal with. And failing that, ships have shorter-range surface to air missiles, Phalanx close-in weapons systems (Vulcan-style guns), and as a last resort, chaff dispensers.
True, all this can be overwhelmed by a massive enough attack, but I don't know of any potential enemy navies that could do this to a full US Navy fleet today.
This reminds me of Tom Clancy's novel "Red Storm Rising". The USS Nimitz carrier battle group was crossing the Atlantic. A squadron of Soviet Backfire bombers attacked the fleet with anti-ship missiles from extreme range. The bombers turned around, leaving the Nimitz's F-14 Tomcats to deal with the mess. The Tomcats used up their Phoenix missiles and managed to stop the attack. Then another wave of Backfires came along, this time launching real missiles (the first volley were decoys). The Tomcats were helpless, the missiles got through, and the Aegis cruisers used up their own missiles without hitting all the "vampires". In the end a couple of smaller ships were sunk and the Nimitz was hit by two missiles, but stayed afloat.
Still, this is all academic. When's the last time you saw an Aegis cruiser shoot in anger?
Am I the only one who has a problem with the closed hull? From my experience, if you try to sail in poor weather, the last thing you need is not being able to see the horizon. Being violently sick is not one of the options on a warship...
'While the point-and-click system is popular with conscripts, the ship was fitted with a wooden ship's wheel at the insistence of senior officers.
While PS2 is popular with the conscripts, the ship was fitted with NT at the insistance of the senior IT staff.
What?
Blue screens aside, what about worms? Does the Win NT system link with communications? We've read here how a worm was found in the safety systems of a nuclear power plant. At least it's a submarine hunter and not a nuclear submarine...
I've done hard real time in NT and various other Windows versions. Whether you can do it depends somewhat on the peripheral hardware and of course the needs. One very HiFi soundcard I designed and built had plenty of ram (256kx32) to have plenty of input and output buffering, for example. This card didn't need or use interrupts or dma at all, and even the opsys going to sleep for awhile (the pentium pause we called it) didn't affect the correct flow of full duplex audio through the card. You just have to design things correctly. Smart peripherals rock if done right. The host CPU didn't have to respond audio sample by sample, but in blocks of 4k stereo samples, which took about 2% of it's time to transfer on the ISA bus using rep outsd or rep insd. The on card cpu took care of keeping all the realtime sample by sample timing straight. With several seconds of buffering possible, we never had problems, even on 486 machines.
Churchill apparently never actually made this statement, although he said he wished he had:
. cf m?pageid=112
See the Churchill Centre:
http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index
OoO
Please do not publish outside of
That on Intel architecture at least, divide by zero is a non-maskable interrupt. It has it's own interrupt pin and everything. This means if ou divide by zero an exception WILL happen and MUST be dealt with.
In a control system you can't afford any appreciable latency, so you can't buffer data for more than one timer tick, and the necessary calculations really have to be done on a regular deterministic schedule. Often you need something like 20ms scheduling, with no appreciable sampling jitter, that is easily achieved by a RTOS, or some minimal custom software, but never by any conventional OS. You have to get all the inputs synchronously, and deliver outputs again synchronously to the timer interrupt, which you need to use to schedule the thing. You have to calculate all your lags and integrators and such like within the time frame every time.
If you build a control system using hardware to do what should be done in proper software, you might as well have no software at all.
I have designed control systems also, I did not write the code, but I specified in minute detail how the one hardware interrupt from a timer would control the scheduling, and I designed the I/O hardware to get the inputs into memory, and the outputs out, synchronously. It was actually easy, the Motorola TPU and QSPI peripherals on their microcontrollers are very useful indeed, when you are using serial ADC and DACs. It could not have been made to work on any existing OS, even with source code, except maybe a real time OS, but in fact the OS requirements of control systems are generally minimal. But, for stable control, we really had to achieve 10mS end to end, regularly, and we got that.
I think that to get stable control of a ships rudder might not need 10ms scheduling, maybe 50ms would do, but you are limited by the need to close the loop round the hydraulic servo, there are lots of bandwidth and stability issues, and you still need a truly deterministic schedule. (M$ appears to have managed the amazing feat of putting non-deterministic code in their OS!) It gets worse if you use electric actuation, the characteristics of motors are such that to get good stiffness you need high loop gain, which places limits on the amount of time delay......
Actually, a good example of what is needed in a control system would be to consider an audio system, with which you are clearly familiar, but for real-time use in live performances, where the equalisation is done by things like FIR filters in the software. Now slow it down by a factor of about 50. (of course no-one uses digital EQ in a live situation, because at the LF end you need so much time to do the EQ calculations, several samples at say 30Hz, that the delay makes it useless anyway, no-one is going to sit and listen to a 100ms or so echo.) Still it can't be done, unless you have a deterministic scheduler.
Lots of cool pictures and info on the Visby at the following sites:
e .html e s/stealth/stealth.html
http://www.kockums.se/News/photostock/photosurfac
http://www.kockums.se/surfacevessels/visby.html
http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/visby/
http://www.memagazine.org/backissues/jan01/featur
3D! Da corn is popping in your face inna... [throws popcorn in his own face] 3-D! -The Swedish Chef
-Mod how you like, we'll make more
Here's just a glimpse of the command interaction with the ship's software...
/E:full /S:on
C:\WINNT\PROGRA~1\SSWRSHP> set SAIL=1
C:\WINNT\PROGRA~1\SSWRSHP> set COURSE="bjürgìn fjòrds"
C:\WINNT\PROGRA~1\SSWRSHP> SSWRSHPC
segmentation fault
C:\BED> exit
_
...and stop the fscking middies from installing Gator on it all the time. If it opens the scuttling valves it'll be the Blue Sea of Death for all of us!
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Why not just get a stanbdard opto mouse, take the teflon feet off to give it a bit more clearance, and mount it adjacent the rear of the wheel? No software... oops, hang on, this is NT, not X, time to write a special "this is not the mouse you are looking for" VXD.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing