Space operations haven't been a real money maker for private companies yet. Yes, a few make some launches on their own, but the vast majority of launches are done with Government support and equipment.
NASA (Government) should be developing the technology (this part is expensive) so private industry can offer services. It is probably non-realistic to expect a private company to expend a billion or so dollars for an unproven (and possibly non-viable) technology.
Private industry can improve on what NASA develops and offer services. The outsourcing of services is reasonable. The development of the basic capability is not, at least until there is some hope of profit for the private company. The stockholders will not stand for pie-in-the-sky projects that may or may not be profitable 10 years from now.
As bad as the Government bureaucracy is in long range planning I'm afraid no one else will even try because the threat of failure is too great. Unfortunately the Government can't even do this right...sigh.
Yes, but it could also mean that the alternative choice is even worse than the berated incumbent.
Maryland (my state) is just about all Democratic. The Republicans often run some turkey just to have a race. The results are usually embarrassing to the Republicans, but at least they tried.
As a registered Republican I've been frustrated year after year having to vote for the Democrat (usually the incumbent) because the Republican was clearly unqualified.
Copiers. What copiers? I started my first engineering job in 1973. Copies were made with carbon paper. If it was really important there was the "Ozlid" process on thermal paper IF you could get the supervisor to approve it. Otherwise I used white out, correction tape, and cut slivers of the previously typed document to make a new version to give back to the secretary (remember them?) to retype. Give it to the secretary more than twice and she let you know what she thought about you, your family, and various barnyard animals you may or may not own (or know).
Nobody mentioned this venerable computing apparatus. The one I bought in 1979 for $1,500 came with a dazzling 16KB RAM, 1200 baud audio tape storage, 2 MHz Z80 CPU, and a fantastic 80 character, 25 line screen. The Apple I at the time only had 40 character, 12 or so lines and a 1 MHz CPU. This was clearly the superior computing machine so I bought it. The only thing was that you had to solder components to the board, make the cables, and basically put all the parts together. Heathkit was nice though. The CPU board and the monitor board were pre-wired. They were multilayer and ham-fisted amateurs like me would probably screw them up.
I have serial number 188. Never buy anything with a serial number below 1000. There were a few "features" in the early machines:-) I immediately upgraded to two hard sectored 160KB floppies and added RAM (to 48KB) so I could run HDOS.
One of the "features" included adding the second (external) floppy drive. The first one was internal. The mod kit came with shims for the rear hinges of the case to create a gap for the ribbon cable to get out. Later versions actually had connectors for this! Such sophistication was not for me:-)
I knew the monitor ROM (now called BIOS) inside and out. I had to to get things to work. Nothing was standard including the floppies. I found a copy of CPM that the H89 could read and my horizons were lifted. I still had to enter the CPM programs in split octal (like hex only weirder). Anybody but me know what split octal is?
I finally ended up with a whopping 1.6MB storage on 5 floppies (each using its own standard), 64KB RAM (max), and a graphics card that was compatible with nothing. I did enjoy drawing sin(x)/x though. It took about a day. By the time I bought my 286 in 1989 I had invested $5,000 in this puppy. I still consider it a good investment for a hardware oriented RF engineer who didn't have a clue what these new fangled computers were all about and was working with computers.
It's still in working condition (as of 15 years ago). It's in a garbage bag in the basement for the moment. I have all the floppies, but it's hard telling if bit rot has killed them. I keep wanting to fire it up again. Procrastination and the fear of black smoke has delayed my experiment.
Ah the good old days:-) I've got 7 computers running on my home network now. I have no idea what's in their ROMs and I'm still learning Linux. My last compiler was Pascal (I learned Algol 60 in college) so I might be a bit behind the times programming wise:-) Still not bad for a retired hardware RF engineer who never did RF in a 29 year career with the US Government.
Try using a card where you can generate a one-time number for each vendor. I use Discover Card for each of my recurring bills and on line purchases. Each vendor gets a different number to bill, all tied to a single card. That way you don't need to cancel the card, just the number.
BTW, I cancelled AOL in 1995 with just an email when I got a real ISP. Of course they were still after their first million customers:-)
Anybody remember the Heathkit H89? I don't see it mentioned very often in the histories but it was used by thousands of people.
I bought one (SN 844) in 1979 since it was superior to the Apple I (its only real competitor). 2 MHz Z80 with 48K of RAM and a full 80 character x25 line display (everyone else was 40 character/line then) and a whoppin' 100K floppy drive for only $1500! The Z80 was a screamer. Mine still works. I used it as my primary machine until 1989.
This machine had superior perfomance for its day. Heath DOS seems to have had many precursors to the "modern" day DOS and only later did I get CPM. Of course I had to write my own programs since nothing was compatible with it:-( I learned FORTRAN 77 on this puppy. Yes, it was SLOW, even then!
The whole idea at the time was to figure out what these microprocessor thingies were. (My EE degree is in RF hardware engineering which I haven't done for 25 years.)
You were supposed to build and create back then. Since there was no support, you HAD to. Ever write a speadsheet program in Benton Harbor Basic? After writing the program you made the program into a single line to save memory.
Sigh, but I show my age.
Rick
WA3VTF (yeah, I still do RF, just not at work)
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Space operations haven't been a real money maker for private companies yet. Yes, a few make some launches on their own, but the vast majority of launches are done with Government support and equipment.
NASA (Government) should be developing the technology (this part is expensive) so private industry can offer services. It is probably non-realistic to expect a private company to expend a billion or so dollars for an unproven (and possibly non-viable) technology.
Private industry can improve on what NASA develops and offer services. The outsourcing of services is reasonable. The development of the basic capability is not, at least until there is some hope of profit for the private company. The stockholders will not stand for pie-in-the-sky projects that may or may not be profitable 10 years from now.
As bad as the Government bureaucracy is in long range planning I'm afraid no one else will even try because the threat of failure is too great. Unfortunately the Government can't even do this right...sigh.
Have they found anything that tastes like chicken? Rattle snakes supposedly do and they're sorta like dragons. We should be looking at Draco!
Yes, but it could also mean that the alternative choice is even worse than the berated incumbent.
Maryland (my state) is just about all Democratic. The Republicans often run some turkey just to have a race. The results are usually embarrassing to the Republicans, but at least they tried.
As a registered Republican I've been frustrated year after year having to vote for the Democrat (usually the incumbent) because the Republican was clearly unqualified.
Copiers. What copiers? I started my first engineering job in 1973. Copies were made with carbon paper. If it was really important there was the "Ozlid" process on thermal paper IF you could get the supervisor to approve it. Otherwise I used white out, correction tape, and cut slivers of the previously typed document to make a new version to give back to the secretary (remember them?) to retype. Give it to the secretary more than twice and she let you know what she thought about you, your family, and various barnyard animals you may or may not own (or know).
Maybe a new distributed computing project--STASI@Home?
Nobody mentioned this venerable computing apparatus. The one I bought in 1979 for $1,500 came with a dazzling 16KB RAM, 1200 baud audio tape storage, 2 MHz Z80 CPU, and a fantastic 80 character, 25 line screen. The Apple I at the time only had 40 character, 12 or so lines and a 1 MHz CPU. This was clearly the superior computing machine so I bought it. The only thing was that you had to solder components to the board, make the cables, and basically put all the parts together. Heathkit was nice though. The CPU board and the monitor board were pre-wired. They were multilayer and ham-fisted amateurs like me would probably screw them up.
:-) I immediately upgraded to two hard sectored 160KB floppies and added RAM (to 48KB) so I could run HDOS.
:-)
:-) I've got 7 computers running on my home network now. I have no idea what's in their ROMs and I'm still learning Linux. My last compiler was Pascal (I learned Algol 60 in college) so I might be a bit behind the times programming wise :-) Still not bad for a retired hardware RF engineer who never did RF in a 29 year career with the US Government.
I have serial number 188. Never buy anything with a serial number below 1000. There were a few "features" in the early machines
One of the "features" included adding the second (external) floppy drive. The first one was internal. The mod kit came with shims for the rear hinges of the case to create a gap for the ribbon cable to get out. Later versions actually had connectors for this! Such sophistication was not for me
I knew the monitor ROM (now called BIOS) inside and out. I had to to get things to work. Nothing was standard including the floppies. I found a copy of CPM that the H89 could read and my horizons were lifted. I still had to enter the CPM programs in split octal (like hex only weirder). Anybody but me know what split octal is?
I finally ended up with a whopping 1.6MB storage on 5 floppies (each using its own standard), 64KB RAM (max), and a graphics card that was compatible with nothing. I did enjoy drawing sin(x)/x though. It took about a day. By the time I bought my 286 in 1989 I had invested $5,000 in this puppy. I still consider it a good investment for a hardware oriented RF engineer who didn't have a clue what these new fangled computers were all about and was working with computers.
It's still in working condition (as of 15 years ago). It's in a garbage bag in the basement for the moment. I have all the floppies, but it's hard telling if bit rot has killed them. I keep wanting to fire it up again. Procrastination and the fear of black smoke has delayed my experiment.
Ah the good old days
Rick
WA3VTF
Try using a card where you can generate a one-time number for each vendor. I use Discover Card for each of my recurring bills and on line purchases. Each vendor gets a different number to bill, all tied to a single card. That way you don't need to cancel the card, just the number.
:-)
BTW, I cancelled AOL in 1995 with just an email when I got a real ISP. Of course they were still after their first million customers
Anybody remember the Heathkit H89? I don't see it mentioned very often in the histories but it was used by thousands of people.
:-( I learned FORTRAN 77 on this puppy. Yes, it was SLOW, even then!
I bought one (SN 844) in 1979 since it was superior to the Apple I (its only real competitor). 2 MHz Z80 with 48K of RAM and a full 80 character x25 line display (everyone else was 40 character/line then) and a whoppin' 100K floppy drive for only $1500! The Z80 was a screamer. Mine still works. I used it as my primary machine until 1989.
This machine had superior perfomance for its day. Heath DOS seems to have had many precursors to the "modern" day DOS and only later did I get CPM. Of course I had to write my own programs since nothing was compatible with it
The whole idea at the time was to figure out what these microprocessor thingies were. (My EE degree is in RF hardware engineering which I haven't done for 25 years.)
You were supposed to build and create back then. Since there was no support, you HAD to. Ever write a speadsheet program in Benton Harbor Basic? After writing the program you made the program into a single line to save memory.
Sigh, but I show my age.
Rick
WA3VTF (yeah, I still do RF, just not at work)