Not the ones I knew. They knew how to follow orders, not make waves etc. I can recall more than a few divulging the plan: military retirment + civilian retirement + social security=set for life.
Yeah memory was the biggest problem then. I had an IMSAI and an Altair (both from failed kit projects friends had given up on). The best Cromemco board I had would have been 16k. The OS was CP/M.
I always thought of the Z80 and it's more advanced DRAM refresh design as the beginnings of areas like RISC. But then, I was just an hobbyist and the S100 stuff just kept me off the street;)
If memory serves me, Richard Nixon chose the shuttle design in 1973. The best proposal was a ram jet that could take off and land at any conventional airport. Instead he went with the second choice which involved the main tank and boosters, thousands of workers and the gargantuan Apollo-leftovers infrastructure.
I can only imagine his reasoning.
I grew up with the space and defense industries all around me--my dad was a computer scientist in the 50's and 60's. It was cool, exciting, cutting edge early in the program. We saw every launch from Mercury through all the Apollo missions. He never worked at KSC like I did. Did more with missle telemetry for defense.
I helped with the Challenger investigation until '87 and finally got on my Harley and rode to Kansas to work at Learjet.
The time is right to get behind entrepreneurs who take the dream to the next level. NASA probably doesn't have any of those people.
To generalize, they were there to get another retirement in to add to the one they got from the military. No boat rocking, no innovation, no free thinking allowed.
When I worked there it was an amazing culture of self-absorbed, self-agrandizing, self-promoting bullshit artists, retired military, political appointees, and rednecks that has probably ever been assembled. It might have been funny if it weren't so painful.
AMD 8086 would be the official second source for the Intel 8086. Seemed pretty good back then. They never mentioned Zilog's Z80. It smoked 'em both util we overclocked the 8086 to 20Mhz.
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Not the ones I knew. They knew how to follow orders, not make waves etc. I can recall more than a few divulging the plan: military retirment + civilian retirement + social security=set for life.
Yeah memory was the biggest problem then. I had an IMSAI and an Altair (both from failed kit projects friends had given up on). The best Cromemco board I had would have been 16k. The OS was CP/M. I always thought of the Z80 and it's more advanced DRAM refresh design as the beginnings of areas like RISC. But then, I was just an hobbyist and the S100 stuff just kept me off the street ;)
If memory serves me, Richard Nixon chose the shuttle design in 1973. The best proposal was a ram jet that could take off and land at any conventional airport. Instead he went with the second choice which involved the main tank and boosters, thousands of workers and the gargantuan Apollo-leftovers infrastructure. I can only imagine his reasoning.
I grew up with the space and defense industries all around me--my dad was a computer scientist in the 50's and 60's. It was cool, exciting, cutting edge early in the program. We saw every launch from Mercury through all the Apollo missions. He never worked at KSC like I did. Did more with missle telemetry for defense. I helped with the Challenger investigation until '87 and finally got on my Harley and rode to Kansas to work at Learjet. The time is right to get behind entrepreneurs who take the dream to the next level. NASA probably doesn't have any of those people.
To generalize, they were there to get another retirement in to add to the one they got from the military. No boat rocking, no innovation, no free thinking allowed.
You too?? I thought he only sent those letters to me! Bastard!
When I worked there it was an amazing culture of self-absorbed, self-agrandizing, self-promoting bullshit artists, retired military, political appointees, and rednecks that has probably ever been assembled. It might have been funny if it weren't so painful.
AMD 8086 would be the official second source for the Intel 8086. Seemed pretty good back then. They never mentioned Zilog's Z80. It smoked 'em both util we overclocked the 8086 to 20Mhz.