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GPS Transitions to New Control System
gsfprez writes "It took us a long time, but the Air Force has finally moved off of the 1970's mainframe GPS control system and is now running on a new Unix-based Control System called AEP — Architecture Evolution Plan. It's important to remember that current GPS satellites are basically solar powered iPod shuffles with atomic clocks that simply playback whatever we upload into them at a precise rate. They don't actually have any idea where they are — its the control system at Schriever Air Force Base that does. The new system will be a lot cheaper to support and modify since Sun stocks things like SATA drives - while digging up Saturday Night Fever-era DASDs isn't simple. AEP will also allow us to be ahead of the curve: we're basically good to go to fly the new IIF birds."
They finally upgraded from 1970s technology to..
..Unix. Oh.
Um.
Yay!!!
I'm not confused, I'm pissed! The Air Force apparently had solar powered iPod shuffles way back in the 1970s while the rest of us had to wait until 2005, and ours aren't even solar powered!
It's like an iPhone with words on the screen, that's what. Stupid words. Shut up.
--Steve
Please stop stalking me, bro.
It's the Air Force that should be pissed. They have paid a billion for the first 27 iPods, while those that waited bought theirs for $300... AF should demand a store credit!
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
Q: What are they going to do with a billion dollar credit at the iTunes store? They song catalog isn't nearly that big!
A: Ringtones.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
so they will buy A sweet desktop - and maybe have enough left over for a monitor, or a two button mouse
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
You could almost afford a sweet Mac Pro with that rebate, I guess.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.