5 ms·

Maybe because they have less and less people who know how to read and program with this particular assembly language? The program was written more than 40 year

by kakwa_ 9y ago

Maybe because they have less and less people who know how to read and program with this particular assembly language? The program was written more than 40 years ago, most of the people who wrote it are probably retired now. Also, it's not a "mainstream but old CPU" like a Z80 or a 6502, given the constrains of a space probe it's probably more a custom thing developped specifically for these (kinds of) missions.

ams6110 9y ago
Some information on CPUs used in spacecraft http://cpushack.com/space-craft-cpu.html http://cpushack.com/space-craft-cpu.html
- codewritinfool 9y ago
  Great link!
NotSammyHagar 9y ago
How old do you have to be to be retired en mass? I'm in my early 50s, first assembler was 6502, second s/370. I'm going strong as a dev. That was a misleading comment "outdated assembly language", but assembly is less common than in the past.
- codewritinfool 9y ago
  Thank you. I was beginning to feel old. I am also in my early fifties. I spent a long time with PPS-4, 8080, Z80, 6809, 8051, and many others. These days I work primarily with Microchip PICs, and still program in assembly fairly often.
  - NotSammyHagar 9y ago
    I never use assembly these days, it's all C++ and before that Java. The only assembly I see is in the debugger and I occasionally look at it and is that left to right or right to left on x86 :-) Let's see, the best assembly was s/370, right? I am pretty sure the destination was on the left. and on x86, does it move right? They got everything else wrong on it :-)
- kakwa_ 9y ago
  The launch was in 1977, the construction of the probes started in 1975. So it's between 41 to 43 years ago. If you were a young engineer at the time, let say 22, you are now 65 years old, if you were 30, you are now 73. So there is a good chance that people who worked on the design and creation of these probes are now retired, except maybe for the youngers (25 and less or the time). It's absolutly not a statement against young versus old. By 68 years old, I hope to be retired ^^. And it doesn't take into account that the computer system is derived from the Vikings probes, so it's even a bit older than that. As for the assembly language, I don't think they are stating that assembly is outdated by itself. I think that they are more stating that the assembly language used for these probes, custom and purpose made for these probes, coming fom the 70ies, is now outdated. And assembly can still be a very legitimate choice, specially in highly constrained domains and high safety assurance requirements (even trusting a compiler is a risk).
Turing_Machine 9y ago
According to this article, most of the code was written in FORTRAN (which is, yeah, pretty old, but is still in widespread use -- you can definitely still hire FORTRAN programmers). https://www.wired.com/2013/09/vintage-voyager-probes/ https://www.wired.com/2013/09/vintage-voyager-probes/ Now, the compiler back end for the CPU may not exist any more, but I wouldn't think that would be all that hard to reproduce.

by kakwa_ 9y ago

ams6110 9y ago

Some information on CPUs used in spacecraft http://cpushack.com/space-craft-cpu.html http://cpushack.com/space-craft-cpu.html

codewritinfool 9y ago
Great link!

NotSammyHagar 9y ago

How old do you have to be to be retired en mass? I'm in my early 50s, first assembler was 6502, second s/370. I'm going strong as a dev. That was a misleading comment "outdated assembly language", but assembly is less common than in the past.

codewritinfool 9y ago
Thank you. I was beginning to feel old. I am also in my early fifties. I spent a long time with PPS-4, 8080, Z80, 6809, 8051, and many others. These days I work primarily with Microchip PICs, and still program in assembly fairly often.
- NotSammyHagar 9y ago
  I never use assembly these days, it's all C++ and before that Java. The only assembly I see is in the debugger and I occasionally look at it and is that left to right or right to left on x86 :-) Let's see, the best assembly was s/370, right? I am pretty sure the destination was on the left. and on x86, does it move right? They got everything else wrong on it :-)
kakwa_ 9y ago
The launch was in 1977, the construction of the probes started in 1975. So it's between 41 to 43 years ago. If you were a young engineer at the time, let say 22, you are now 65 years old, if you were 30, you are now 73. So there is a good chance that people who worked on the design and creation of these probes are now retired, except maybe for the youngers (25 and less or the time). It's absolutly not a statement against young versus old. By 68 years old, I hope to be retired ^^. And it doesn't take into account that the computer system is derived from the Vikings probes, so it's even a bit older than that. As for the assembly language, I don't think they are stating that assembly is outdated by itself. I think that they are more stating that the assembly language used for these probes, custom and purpose made for these probes, coming fom the 70ies, is now outdated. And assembly can still be a very legitimate choice, specially in highly constrained domains and high safety assurance requirements (even trusting a compiler is a risk).

Turing_Machine 9y ago

According to this article, most of the code was written in FORTRAN (which is, yeah, pretty old, but is still in widespread use -- you can definitely still hire FORTRAN programmers). https://www.wired.com/2013/09/vintage-voyager-probes/ https://www.wired.com/2013/09/vintage-voyager-probes/ Now, the compiler back end for the CPU may not exist any more, but I wouldn't think that would be all that hard to reproduce.