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It's one instrument on the MARS Express orbiter that needed a bit more processing power than most spaceflight computers could deliver. They sent a P90 running
by mlyle 4y ago
It's one instrument on the MARS Express orbiter that needed a bit more processing power than most spaceflight computers could deliver. They sent a P90 running a stripped down 98. Not an ideal choice, but not terrible, either-- it's just one instrument.
- iancmceachern 4y agoThanks for this, that's amazing. It's also amazing that it's still working, assuming it wasn't radiation hardened and all.
- ncmncm 4y agoNo, it is fully as terrible as can be imagined, if true. But I have doubts.
- mlyle 4y agoIt turns out it's untrue, after reading other sources. Instead, they had to resurrect a Windows 98 development environment to patch the software running on the DSPs. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/mars-probe-gets-windows-98-update https://www.tomshardware.com/news/mars-probe-gets-windows-98... I was a little credulous reading some of the poorer quality sources reporting this. On the other hand, I've reluctantly deployed DOS and pre-Windows-NT embedded systems to run various instruments. (I've gotten away with running Wine and box86 on little ARM SBCs sometimes, but at the cost of having even less support from the hardware and software developers). Running an ancient OS in a small environment embedded can easily be the "least evil" thing.