5 ms·
> It has a number of CPUs, the fastest of which is an 80486 running at 25 MHz. Not unexpected but reading that now... Absolutely remarkable.
by therein 8y ago
> It has a number of CPUs, the fastest of which is an 80486 running at 25 MHz.
Not unexpected but reading that now... Absolutely remarkable.
- Lammy 8y agoSpecifically, a radiation-hardened 486. The type of equipment that can survive in space lags significantly behind what you would consider modern on a desktop computer. For example, the radiation-hardened PowerPC G3 is a popular choice. It will power the 2020 Mars rover too: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAD750 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAD750
- bluedino 8y agoThe 80486 was state of the art in 1990 when the Hubble launched, as it was released in 1989. Was it installed as a later update? The PowerPC G3 was released in Apple computers in 1997, just a few years later.
- Sharlin 8y agoYep, the original main computer was a 1.25 MHz (!) DF-224 [1]. It was augmented on Servicing Mission 1 in 1993 with a 15 Mhz 80386 co-processor [2]. The 80486 was installed in 1999 on Servicing Mission 3A (STS-103) [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DF-224 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DF-224 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-61 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-61 [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-103 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-103
- ams6110 8y agoReading more about the DF-224... It was roughly 45 centimeters (1.48 ft) by 45 centimeters (1.48 ft) by 30 centimeters (0.98 ft), weighed 50 kilograms (110 lb) It had about 96KB of usable plated-wire memory (32K 24-bit words). That seems like a lot of weight. I wonder how much was radiation shielding?
- stephengillie 8y agoSo not a data center, but like an Arduino.