Space Computer s/w? h/w?

i was wondering what kind of computer's do they use up there?


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Obviously not normal ones, last thing you'd need is your OS to stall and your atmospheric recycling system to stall so your monoxide/dioxide levels increase.

I think they are custom built systems similar to Industry PLC systems (the sorts that drive Robotic production lines in car factories etc). Since of the location it's destined for I would guess that it's build for the task rather than having a computer emulate to deal for the task, so that would be board designs and assembly all the way up.

 

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i saw a picture once where they had a labtop

 

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I've seen such a picture too. Though I have a good guess that they aren't running on windows

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probably the hardware has undergone field testing and the cases are of some more durable material than the market ones

 

Very, very simple and old software. Practically stone age. Nasa is stuck in the way back machine I think.

I believe I learned this in reference to the mars probes. They're running ancient processors and an old version of linux (or maybe linux is up to date, but the hardware is definitely ancient).

The thing is that their stuff has to go through so much red tape to be approved that nothing new really gets in. I wonder if the astronauts take laptops with them on the space shuttle?

Edit: Doh! Kunax just said he saw a bloody pic of them with a laptop.

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I'd bet that's personal equipment. Not nasa issue. Could be wrong. Maybe requirements on hardware that isn't mission critical is less stringent?

 

Laptop is probably too heavy to be allowed as personal equipment.

Wouldn't system designers try to use as little software as possible? Safety and other critical systems would definetly be hardware (or at least firmware) controlled.

 

Around 12 years ago I was coding for a CPU called Transputers T800. These where specifically aimed at parallel computing applications. To this time still where the sexiest computer hardware ive seen. The language I used is call OCCAM. These chip where designed for military space applications and where radiation hardened, basically covered in gold. The problem was that the RAM and ROM was still susceptible to space radiation. So to safe guard your code from corruption you coded your software and when you where happy with the code you simple sent it to the manufacture and they would implement you code into the hardware on the CPU. This was not just a ROM on chip but a full hardware implementation of your code in a logic array, thus turning you software to hardware.
Our software was never destine for space, but I did implement a custom bootstrap into a couple of chips providing a instance boot GUI. Oh those where the days.
I have not keep up with this type of hardware, but Im sure some of that space hardware is still flying overhead with no software just hardware.

 

You mean like Hardwired?

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well, window bashing is a little annoying for people sometimes, but windows cant run a desktop well, let alone a space shuttle, wouldnt NASA create their own or use DOD systems or something?