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Hubble Repairs Hindered By Antiquated Computer Systems
Andrew Moseman writes "Part of the trouble NASA is encountering while fixing the Hubble Space Telescope comes from the fact that it's been up there for nearly two decades, and therefore carries computer systems long outdated here on Earth. 'One of the main computers that the Goddard team has been struggling with during the repair attempts runs on an Intel 486 chip, the height of 1989 technology.' Many of NASA's long-running missions rely on antiquated systems — the Voyager probes each have about 32k of memory — but the scientists say they can manage."
Isn't it about time the hardware gets an upgrade? I know, they like their known issues and reliabilities, but I guess some Pentiums could be considered 'reliable', couldn't they?
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
I'm willing to bet you're wrong.
I see this has been modded funny - but there is a v.salient issue here. Once space-based weaponry is up there there'll be little option for critical upgrades...
Many of NASA's long-running missions rely on antiquated systems -- the Voyager probes each have about 32k of memory -- but the scientists say they can manage."
It would be nice if the submitter would add a proposed remedy, like simply sending a service probe out to add some more RAM.
Oh, wait.
Well, I guess when they send a space probe out into the furthest reaches of the solar system, most scientists would expect that they will have to deal with whatever hardware was on board at the time of the launch for the duration of the mission.
I love the end of the article:
"It's really reliable," she said. "There really is no need to upgrade it."
I wish more people understood that.
It's no news that Hubble is operating with technology that dates from the era of its launch.
If you want machines in space to use current tech, then you need to send people with uptodate hardware.
Hint, hint.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
This is a bullshit article. Unfortunately, that has become the norm for Popular Mechanics.
The Intel 486 is hardly some arcane CPU that's so old that nobody knows how to program it. Anybody who can write assembly for modern PCs can write assembly for the 486. And anybody who wants to write in a higher-level language can -- because all the 486 development tools are still easily available.
If you read the article, you'll find that it presents no evidence whatsoever for its assertion that the Hubble's use of a 486 makes it harder to repair. In fact, it reads more like, "The Hubble has a 486, and damn that seems outdated to me! Maybe that's why it's so hard to fix!" Really, that's about the level of the 'logical' argument that you'll find in the article.
"PNG is somewhat better than TIFF last time I checked"
Most people learn at quite a young age that the word 'better' doesn't really mean anything on its own. Better at what? Better at supporting non-RGB colour spaces? Better at supporting RGB with more than 8bits per colour, or even floating point values? Storing multiple images in a single file? No, png supportings none of these things that tiff does. If you're creating computer graphics for UI's, websites etc, png is probably a better choice, as that's more what it's designed for, but there are many other uses for storing images outside of this scope that tiff fits much better than png. As far as compression's concerned, PNG supports DEFLATE, which existed before PNG did, and the same with TIFF and its supported LZW compression (not that there's anything stopping you compressing either with either).
To sum up: better at what?
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia