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There's a claim in the article that it's too difficult to update the software on the F16s. Could someone (ideally with military aircraft software experience) co

There's a claim in the article that it's too difficult to update the software on the F16s. Could someone (ideally with military aircraft software experience) comment on this? I don't understand -- I would think that software would be the easiest (but not necessarily cheapest) thing to upgrade. Computers have only gotten smaller and faster.

nonameiguess 6y ago
I can't comment from the perspective of the F16 specifically, but from experience working on upgrade efforts of military and IC ground processing systems, the challenge is the legacy systems are very tightly coupled to the hardware. They make strong assumptions about register size and number, bus bandwidth, filesystem block size, all kinds of things that software developers rarely think about any more, but things that mean the software is only going to run on the hardware it's currently running on, and when the hardware vendor hasn't even sold that product for over a decade, I've seen government programs literally scrounge eBay to find replacement parts. So upgrading the software isn't just a matter of installing an upgrade. It's a total from the ground up rewrite and also requires new hardware.
- uncoder0 6y ago
  Worked around F16's and F22's when I was in and can attest that this is the source of the issue for upgrades. Everything in the software is so tightly coupled to the hardware that updating the F16's would be a monumental effort. The difference between a 4th and 5th generation air frame are night and day in terms of software capabilities. Hell, even the different between 5th generation jets can be massive on the software side such as the gap between F22 vs F35 the later being far more advanced on the software side.
  - tandr 6y ago
    Please forgive my ignorance of military processes involved. Could that be addressed by old software trick of modularising components - software and hardware-alike - and rely on some extensive semi-open protocols to connect these? I think car manufacturers have faced that at some time in the past, even inside single manufacturer (not sure if they have solved it completely). Sounds like they need Ada-like project, but for hardware side.
    - tablespoon 6y ago
      Full disclosure: I don't work in defense, but I've read Wikipedia. >>> I can't comment from the perspective of the F16 specifically, but from experience working on upgrade efforts of military and IC ground processing systems, the challenge is the legacy systems are very tightly coupled to the hardware. They make strong assumptions about register size and number, bus bandwidth, filesystem block size, all kinds of things... >> Worked around F16's and F22's when I was in and can attest that this is the source of the issue for upgrades. Everything in the software is so tightly coupled to the hardware that updating the F16's would be a monumental effort. > Could that be addressed by old software trick of modularising components - software and hardware-alike - and rely on some extensive semi-open protocols to connect these? I think the military has already done that to a degree, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIL-STD-1553 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIL-STD-1553 (serial data bus) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIL-STD-1750A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIL-STD-1750A (16-bit ISA) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_16 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_16 (tactical radio communication) It sounds like there are two issues: 1) protocols and standards themselves can become obsolete, so it's like updating Apple II DOS to read a ZFS array (or a modern Mac to work with 5 1/4 floppy drives).
      - tandr 6y ago
        Thank you. I guess it is a good start. But, as a solution - develop new protocols and standards, and declare that military does not buy _anything_ that does not interoperate on these standards, no matter how advanced your shit is?
        tablespoon 6y ago
        > Thank you. I guess it is a good start. But, as a solution - develop new protocols and standards, and declare that military does not buy _anything_ that does not interoperate on these standards, no matter how advanced your shit is? But that wouldn't likely make it any easier to update the software. Say the military makes the PowerPC ISA (e.g. RAD750 processor) and IEEE_1394 bus the new standards. If you have to port a program written to run on a MIL-STD-1750A processor with a MIL-STD-1553 data bus, you're dealing with an entirely different ISA, new drivers, and probably a lot of behavioral differences between the old and new bus behaviors. And given this is aerospace, some options for dealing with those differences (e.g. emulators) may be totally off the table (for instance, I think I read somewhere that coding standards for one of the recent US fighters forbids dynamic memory allocation). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAD750 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAD750 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_1394#Military_and_aerospace_vehicles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_1394#Military_and_aerospa...
  - zmix 6y ago
    Computers in the 80's lacked HAL. But they, typically, got it in the 90's. I wonder, why the F35 is missing it. Or is this different?
  - cwwc 6y ago
    does this make them inherently safer from a 'hack'?
    - GekkePrutser 6y ago
      I don't think so.. Probably less safe as software in the 80s was definitely built with less of a focus on digital security. Back in those days telnet was considered secure :)
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  Also, I've read they want more room for avionics hw (with cooling and enough amps) in hatch areas, which is designed into new models. Planes today are thought of as computer platforms as much as weapons platforms, though one would think Moore's law would solve the space/volume problem.
- bdavis__ 6y ago
  New F16's have new CPU's and millions of lines of new code. The mission processors have been updated many times over the years. And new radars and sensors and weapons. And data link. The airframe is old and non-stealthy. It also carries a limited amount of bombs / missiles.

nonameiguess 6y ago

I can't comment from the perspective of the F16 specifically, but from experience working on upgrade efforts of military and IC ground processing systems, the challenge is the legacy systems are very tightly coupled to the hardware. They make strong assumptions about register size and number, bus bandwidth, filesystem block size, all kinds of things that software developers rarely think about any more, but things that mean the software is only going to run on the hardware it's currently running on, and when the hardware vendor hasn't even sold that product for over a decade, I've seen government programs literally scrounge eBay to find replacement parts. So upgrading the software isn't just a matter of installing an upgrade. It's a total from the ground up rewrite and also requires new hardware.

uncoder0 6y ago
Worked around F16's and F22's when I was in and can attest that this is the source of the issue for upgrades. Everything in the software is so tightly coupled to the hardware that updating the F16's would be a monumental effort. The difference between a 4th and 5th generation air frame are night and day in terms of software capabilities. Hell, even the different between 5th generation jets can be massive on the software side such as the gap between F22 vs F35 the later being far more advanced on the software side.
- tandr 6y ago
  Please forgive my ignorance of military processes involved. Could that be addressed by old software trick of modularising components - software and hardware-alike - and rely on some extensive semi-open protocols to connect these? I think car manufacturers have faced that at some time in the past, even inside single manufacturer (not sure if they have solved it completely). Sounds like they need Ada-like project, but for hardware side.
  - tablespoon 6y ago
    Full disclosure: I don't work in defense, but I've read Wikipedia. >>> I can't comment from the perspective of the F16 specifically, but from experience working on upgrade efforts of military and IC ground processing systems, the challenge is the legacy systems are very tightly coupled to the hardware. They make strong assumptions about register size and number, bus bandwidth, filesystem block size, all kinds of things... >> Worked around F16's and F22's when I was in and can attest that this is the source of the issue for upgrades. Everything in the software is so tightly coupled to the hardware that updating the F16's would be a monumental effort. > Could that be addressed by old software trick of modularising components - software and hardware-alike - and rely on some extensive semi-open protocols to connect these? I think the military has already done that to a degree, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIL-STD-1553 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIL-STD-1553 (serial data bus) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIL-STD-1750A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIL-STD-1750A (16-bit ISA) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_16 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_16 (tactical radio communication) It sounds like there are two issues: 1) protocols and standards themselves can become obsolete, so it's like updating Apple II DOS to read a ZFS array (or a modern Mac to work with 5 1/4 floppy drives).
    - tandr 6y ago
      Thank you. I guess it is a good start. But, as a solution - develop new protocols and standards, and declare that military does not buy _anything_ that does not interoperate on these standards, no matter how advanced your shit is?
      - tablespoon 6y ago
        > Thank you. I guess it is a good start. But, as a solution - develop new protocols and standards, and declare that military does not buy _anything_ that does not interoperate on these standards, no matter how advanced your shit is? But that wouldn't likely make it any easier to update the software. Say the military makes the PowerPC ISA (e.g. RAD750 processor) and IEEE_1394 bus the new standards. If you have to port a program written to run on a MIL-STD-1750A processor with a MIL-STD-1553 data bus, you're dealing with an entirely different ISA, new drivers, and probably a lot of behavioral differences between the old and new bus behaviors. And given this is aerospace, some options for dealing with those differences (e.g. emulators) may be totally off the table (for instance, I think I read somewhere that coding standards for one of the recent US fighters forbids dynamic memory allocation). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAD750 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAD750 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_1394#Military_and_aerospace_vehicles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_1394#Military_and_aerospa...
- zmix 6y ago
  Computers in the 80's lacked HAL. But they, typically, got it in the 90's. I wonder, why the F35 is missing it. Or is this different?
- cwwc 6y ago
  does this make them inherently safer from a 'hack'?
  - GekkePrutser 6y ago
    I don't think so.. Probably less safe as software in the 80s was definitely built with less of a focus on digital security. Back in those days telnet was considered secure :)
redis_mlc 6y ago
Also, I've read they want more room for avionics hw (with cooling and enough amps) in hatch areas, which is designed into new models. Planes today are thought of as computer platforms as much as weapons platforms, though one would think Moore's law would solve the space/volume problem.
bdavis__ 6y ago
New F16's have new CPU's and millions of lines of new code. The mission processors have been updated many times over the years. And new radars and sensors and weapons. And data link. The airframe is old and non-stealthy. It also carries a limited amount of bombs / missiles.