Antique Voyager Technology

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Posted by kdawson on Saturday September 1, 2007 @08:51PM from the spinning-tapes-and-flashing-lights dept.

sea_stuart writes with a story from the Tidbinbilla space tracking station, outside Canberra, Australia. It is still communicating with the two Voyager spacecraft 30 years after they were launched and 18 years after Voyager 2 passed close by Neptune. Here's a little background on Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. "The bank of computers that would look at home in black-and-white episodes of Doctor Who cannot be junked... [T]he 1970s hardware is now our world's only means of chatting with two robot pioneers exploring the solar system's outer limits. Today Voyager 1 is humanity's most remote object, 15.5 billion kilometers from the sun. Voyager 2 is 12.5 billion kilometers from it. Both continue beaming home reports, but now they are space-age antiques. 'The Voyager technology is so outmoded,' said Tidbinbilla's spokesman, Glen Nagle, 'we have had to maintain heritage equipment to talk to them.'"

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Re:Functional replacement with modern components? by unfunk · 2007-09-01 22:25 · Score: 5, Funny

The same software SCATS
That sounds like some pretty shitty software...
Re:I've got an old dell they can use... by gone_bush · 2007-09-01 22:34 · Score: 5, Funny

No can do - the licence specifically prohibits running the software in a virtual machine.

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Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less travelled by. (Robert Frost, 1916)
The reason for all that legacy equipment... by itsdapead · 2007-09-01 22:55 · Score: 5, Funny

(ring) (ring) (click) G'day, this is Tidbinbilla, how can we help?
"Er, Hi, This is Ranesh from Advanced Emulation Solutions... I'm testing the VM you commissioned to replace your legacy communications solution. Thing is, there seems to be an undocumented bug in the command protocol and the remote client has locked up. Could some one pop over and power-cycle the client, please?
****???^^^^!!!!
Hey - take it easy - "no worries" as you guys say - just turn off the power, count to ten and turn it on again!
$$$$!!!!##### !!!!!
Er, 15.5 billion kilometers, you say? Look, I know you guys like to boast about the size of Australia, but...
$$$$ ****ING OUTER SPACE !!!!! MOST DISTANT MAN-MADE ****ING OBJECT !!!!!
Oh. Shit. I wonderered why the ping time was 24 hours.
Don't you guys have on-site support?

--
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
1. Re:The reason for all that legacy equipment... by MichaelSmith · 2007-09-01 23:49 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  although it's closer to 23 hours
  Takes an hour for the processor on Voyager to unpack an ICMP message, parse the ping, compose a reply, encapsulate and send it.
  
  --
  http://michaelsmith.id.au
Re:Useful information? by QuickFox · 2007-09-02 00:00 · Score: 5, Funny

Yes, the science community will be rather surprised when the Voyager spacecraft smash into the huge black sphere with the painted stars.

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Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
Re:I've got an old dell they can use... by Megane · 2007-09-02 02:19 · Score: 3, Funny

Give me a week's vacation in France, and I can probably come back with a dozen old Minitel modems.

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#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Re:I've got an old dell they can use... by mazarin5 · 2007-09-02 05:14 · Score: 5, Funny

Going by the progression of this thread, this seems like an appropriate point to suggest that I can do it in minutes with a tuning fork.

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Fnord.