16 ms·
1980s computer controls Grand Rapids Public School heat and AC
- kybernetyk 11y agoIf it ain't broke, don't fix it.
- LunaSea 11y agoIf nobody can fix it, break it.
- pyre 11y agoWell, at least planning for the future seems prudent. Otherwise if such a system breaks permanently, then you are scrambling to get something else up while the whole system is down (even ignoring the question of backups and data migration to a new system).
- smcl 11y agoWell the article says "If the computer stopped working tomorrow, a staff person would have to turn each building’s climate control systems on and off by hand" - I know that's not exactly a tiny job across 19 schools but it doesn't seem to be a hugely tough task
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoThere can be dozens of air conditioners on the roof of a school. And they have to be cycled on and off all day long as they cool the building, else it'll turn into winter in there. Definitely a fulltime job for somebody. That's why we have thermostats.
- ganeumann 11y agoYou do wonder if those staff people would be ok turning it on and off by hand if they got the "$1.5 to $2 million" needed to replace the system. That said, I'm pretty sure I could get an Amiga emulator running on a Raspberry Pi for a lot less than $1.5 million.
- cwyers 11y agoAs has been said multiple times before, it's not $2 million to keep this kid's school project running for another 30 years, it's $2 million for a better HVAC automation system. They've probably pissed away multiples of $2 million in energy costs not having a better system in place the past 30 years.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- ganeumann 11y agoNo kidding, but that's not how the article was written. My second paragraph was a comment on that. Every budget ever written stuffs things that management thinks can be put off until later into funding for things that absolutely need to be done today.
- nodata 11y agoIf it's about to fail, have a replacement ready.
- rbanffy 11y agoIt's not like an Amiga 3000 or 4000 is that expensive anyway. And, probably, they could run their software under an emulator, on any US$200 desktop PC.
- Jtsummers 11y agoIt's not just the software. They're controlling these systems via radios that operate on the same frequencies as other radios in use. It's (at this point) clumsy and error prone. To be fair, they probably saved the tax payers a lot of money by using this system for as long as they have.
- rbanffy 11y ago> To be fair, they probably saved the tax payers a lot of money by using this system for as long as they have. Indeed. The major annoyance I see is the radios interfering with each other. The centralized control architecture is also something I'd like to change. Each building does not require anything much smarter than an Arduino to be completely standalone and, if you want to be fancy, an RPi to send collected data to a centralized location.
- yellowapple 11y agoAnother viable approach could be to setup Amiga emulators on old/discarded PCs and repurpose the existing software using wired instead of wireless connections.
- rbanffy 11y agoThe 2M number is probably a major overhaul of every part of the system. Utility bills alone will probably more than cover the difference. I suggested a US$ 200 PC because many of those have no moving parts and more storage space than any Amiga ever dreamed of. They should be able to easily last 30 years or more.
- kogepathic 11y ago> The only problem is that the computer operates on the same frequency as some of the walkie-talkies used by the maintenance department. It's awesome that it's been functional for this long, but given the press attention I hope they don't receive unwanted attention given that this system was implemented in the 1980s, before computer security was as large an issue as it has become.[1] With the amount of publicity this article has generated, I bet someone with an SDR is going to drive over and analyze the RF signals, and then hijack the HVAC systems for the lulz. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notable_computer_viruses_and_worms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notable_computer_viruses_and_w...
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoExcept its in Michigan.
- ehntoo 11y agoAs a Grand Rapids resident who knows quite well how to use a SDR, I'm going to choose a positive interpretation of this comment and assume you're referring to the phenomena of "West Michigan nice", where hacking a public system for lulz would be absolutely unconscionable. That being said, I'm actually rather tempted to at least figure out what the air interface is. The article mentions a 1200 baud modem - does a standard UHF/VHF voice channel have enough bandwidth to run PSK/FSK V.22 or V.23? That'd be quite a hack.
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoI meant that its far the heck away from everywhere and the population is low. Thus, a low incidence of griefers of any kind. But your take is good too.
- da_chicken 11y agoTwo hours from both Detroit and Chicago isn't far. A city of 180,000 isn't low; it's the largest city in the state behind Detroit.
- A_COMPUTER 11y agoOften it's dealing with interfaces. A couple years ago I worked at a place with a laser cutter, like an old one. You sent instructions to a program that talked to an interface card, which controlled the cutter. The program ran under DOS. It wasn't possible to replace the OS or machine easily, because it was an ISA card and had custom interface software that relied on having direct access.
- jsulak 11y agoSee also: http://www.chron.com/news/article/xx-4459714.php http://www.chron.com/news/article/xx-4459714.php
- mootothemax 11y ago"A new, more current system would cost between $1.5 and 2 million." How on earth! And where can I apply?
- 27182818284 11y agoThat doesn't seem unreasonable to me. My guess is they'll also be updating some of the controlled equipment at the same time too.
- piptastic 11y agoI'm guessing they mean to replace all the heating equipment as well.
- brudgers 11y ago$2m might cover design fees for swapping out mechanical systems across 19 schools but probably not considering that this would be on the high end of the typical public project fee curve because of how messy HVAC renovations are for the sort of water distributed systems usually installed in large 40 year public buildings. It's not going to be craning in and out some package units from the rooftop.
- jessaustin 11y agoFrom TFA: Bringing Stocking Elementary out of moth balls, replacing boilers and roofs, and removing asbestos were just some of the projects GRPS put on the Warm, Safe and Dry list before the Commodore computer. It seems they've already replaced boilers. They could have fixed any leaking radiators while they did that. ISTM they really are just talking about the control system. Perhaps it made sense to build a custom system in 1982, although I really doubt it. Nowadays, Honeywell certainly sells units that can just be dropped in, at each site. Unless they have steam tunnels running between the 19 buildings, centralization of control seems unnecessary. Sure, holidays, snow days, and terms move around slightly, but schools are on the internet now so staff at district HQ can manage each site's schedules when they need to do so. It would make sense to have centralized reporting, but just run that over the internet instead of the walkie-talkie bands. IANACivilEngineer!
- castratikron 11y agoAnd PDP-11s still run nuclear plants.
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoAh! PDP-11! I mis-spent my youth on one. I remember seeing one standing out in the rain in Los Alamos at an electronics surplus store. Didn't even rate getting inside the building under cover. Now that's melancholy.
- saboot 11y agoNuclear launch commands are still stored on 8-inch (yes!) floppy disks!
- rmxt 11y agoThis legacy system issue doesn't just happen to remote/low budget operations either. While they've now moved to emulating the system on what are presumably VMs, Columbia University uses what amounts to a 40 year old system to post final grades to the student administration portal. Official transcript grades are updated once daily, at some time in the wee hours of the morning. From a Columbia CS professor: "Columbia processes grades by using a system that was first released in 1972. In order to have kept it running for more than 40 years, it has consistently run special-purpose emulators that make its otherwise state-of-the-art systems think that they are stuck in the 70s and using an operating system called “CP/CMS”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VM_(operating_system) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VM_(operating_system) The grading system is written in a programming language called “Focus,” which in 1975 was one of the very first database languages developed and released: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOCUS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOCUS But because of this, grades are processed only once per day, in a batch job that runs at about midnight every night. I am not making this up. The university, recognizing that it is time for it to upgrade, does have plans for replacing the grading system. The upgrade is scheduled for the year 2020. I am not making this up either." http://bwog.com/2014/01/06/why-your-grades-take-so-long-to-show-up/ http://bwog.com/2014/01/06/why-your-grades-take-so-long-to-s... I imagine these schools will eventually move to something similar: an emulated system with specialized hardware to interface with the mechanical equipment.
- eli 11y agoMany universities have systems like that. Banks too. Probably true of many early adopters: they built systems that worked and didn't rewrite them simply for the sake of having something new.
- organsnyder 11y agoWhen I interned at IBM from 2003-2006, we submitted our timecards using a terminal application accessed over telnet. I don't know exactly what system it was, but the key commands certainly evoked thoughts of early mainframes.
- nine_k 11y ago
- invisible_dust 11y agoI'm pretty sure they could buy a $50 laptop off craigslist instead of a 1.5-2 million dollar systems upgrade. These are the morons teaching children.
- Jtsummers 11y agoThey aren't replacing a computer. They're replacing a (at this point) hard to maintain system for controlling their HVAC system and other aspects of their HVAC system. For 19 schools, this seems cheap to me. More modern HVAC and HVAC controls will also result in reduced energy costs saving the district money further down the line.
- vidarh 11y agoThe irony of accusing someone of being morons without understanding the scope of the project you're criticising them for.
- stormen 11y agoWell, at least they don't have to worry about viruses.
- romland 11y agoVirii were mostly spread over floppy (boot block or trojan) back then. While I agree that it's very unlikely that this system will get infected, don't think that times were better back then :) http://www.teyko.com/View.aspx?id=346&name=Saddam+Virus http://www.teyko.com/View.aspx?id=346&name=Saddam+Virus ...which was a rather brilliant little thing, but a personal hatred as it messed up many a .s files (.s stood for "source code" or "Seka", I guess).
- to3m 11y agoObligatory nitpick regarding the plural of "virus": http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/plural-of-virus.html http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/plural-of-virus.html
- qrmn 11y agoRichard Karsmakers used "virii" to describe a plural of computer virus in the 16-bit era, largely on the basis that it was shorter. It isn't correct Latin, but it is a VX scene thing, so is absolutely correct in this context.
- jrochkind1 11y agoThat it would cost 1.2 million to replace something that was probably done for, oh, $20K in (say) 1980... says something about where we've gone. For reference, 1.2 million in 2014 dollars is around $418K in 1980 dollars.
- dsr_ 11y agoIf your first thought is that $2M to replace an Amiga is ridiculous, stop. They wouldn't be replacing the Amiga for $2M. They'll be replacing a 19 site remote HVAC control system, certainly including new radio systems, local controllers, and the central controller. They will want something with a warranty and a service contract for the next 20-30 years.
- bechampion 11y agothanks for the clarification , the article was misleading to the max
- organsnyder 11y agoWelcome to West Michigan local media (though I'm sure this phenomenon isn't unique to this area). While it can probably be explained by bad writing, they've also learned that anything that provokes the ire of tea-partiers is golden for driving pageviews.
- Grazester 11y agoI don't see how anyone could have thought that it cost $2 million to replace this computer. It became very clean that it was for a revamp of the entire system.
- JustSomeNobody 11y agoAnd it probably would not function as well as this (even with this setup's many issues).
- organsnyder 11y agoI see no reason for it not to. Keep in mind that this system has also required maintenance over the years (just like any system). The cost savings from improved efficiency (more granular control, reacting to weather & building occupancy, etc.) will also be a huge improvement.
- bencollier49 11y ago"That's probably because he wasn't sick. He was skipping school. Wake up and smell the coffee, Mrs. Bueller. It's a fool's paradise. He is just leading you down the primrose path.... I've got it right here in front of me. He has missed nine days...." eight, seven, six..
- NamTaf 11y agoMy company, an ASX30 corporation, still runs its operations through an emulated IBM 3270 terminal sitting on top of a DB2 v8 mainframe with literally thousands of tables in it. 4 character transaction codes and ctrl as 'enter command' for all! We're currently developing a replacement SAP solution. I'm yet to decide which is more obtuse. edit: The SAP solution was spurred not because the old system was breaking but rather that when the COO asked for some daily reports and the IT propellerheads replied that the data crunching to generate said 24 hour reports took more than 24 hours to run.
- chestervonwinch 11y ago> A Kentwood High School student programmed it when it was installed in the 1980s. Whenever the district has a problem with it, they go back to the original programmer who still lives in the area. Now that's job security!
- SmellyGeekBoy 11y agoI wonder what the hourly rate is ;)
- tacone 11y ago30 years of service? Sounds like a success story.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 11y agoEspecially in light of the cost of "updating" it. I realize it's not the $2M to replace an amiga.
- tempodox 11y agoAmiga? That had a Motorola 68000 CPU, if I remember correctly. I knew when I saw the MC68k the first time that it had the Schwartz to rule them all — and decades later it's still true :)
- wumbernang 11y agoI thought that. Then living in the UK our first 32-bit ARM personal computers turned up in 1987. They even ran rings around high end Unix kit. And here I am in 2015 typing this on a 32-bit ARM A7...
- nickbauman 11y agoThere is at least one Amiga emulator. http://www.winuae.net/ http://www.winuae.net/
- nickbauman 11y agoMore than one: http://www.amigaforever.com/emulator/ http://www.amigaforever.com/emulator/
- kyberias 11y agoAmiga Forever is basically WinUAE.
- ekianjo 11y agoThere's FS-UAE as well.
- Nelson69 11y agoWhat's the realistic life expectancy of modern hardware? I ran a Ras. Pi system for monitoring my sprinklers and such but after about 9 months it has had some funkiness, I suspect power related and then the flash has had a couple little glitches. I couldn't see it lasting 5 years. I have an odroid-c1 that seems to be more robust in terms of power and such (it has a dedicated transformer, not some cheap USB that seems to "work") I do worry about the flash crapping out... Although if the policy is to burn a few flashes and just keep some spares, you should have quick recovery. Maybe some good server grade hardware, in a data center, you can expect some decent life.
- HeyLaughingBoy 11y agoMost embedded system failures are due to power and I/O. If you have robust power supplies from a reputable manufacturer (I like TDK/Lambda) with good filtering on the input (maybe external powerline filter modules), and you protect your external inputs and outputs, then the next thing to worry about is flash lifetime which should be measured in decades if you're not writing to it. Problem with a Rasp Pi/Beaglebone is that it's running Linux and there are likely disk writes occurring, so your lifetime drops. If you can both limit disk writes and get long lifetime SSDs, I don't see why it shouldn't last at least 10 years.
- roneesh 11y ago'Old code' !== 'Bad Code' I would say that's an assumption we as developers need to teach society, but we should really work on teaching it to ourselves first. I can't tell you how many times I've heard "We should just start over" rather than try and understand what we have.
- flurpitude 11y agoThe software would only be a small part of this project. The issues they discussed in the clip (risk of sudden failure, radio interference) were hardware issues.
- JustSomeNobody 11y agoThis. Nobody today would even consider trying to design something so simple it could last three decades. And certainly nobody would want to support it. Everyone wants shiny and new...
- geon 11y agoSome arduinos with an ethernet shield and a super simple web backend?
- sliverstorm 11y agoEthernet is great, but thirty years from now it and/or RJ-45 might sound just as antiquated.
- technofiend 11y agoHow right you are. On the other hand I'm continually surprised that my paycheck in 2015 comes (more or less) from a descendent of an operating system I learned in the 80's.
- geon 11y agoSure. And then it's time to retire it, after a job well done.
- flurpitude 11y agoPedantic, but if it's an Amiga 2000 (which it appears to be from the video) then this can't have been running since 1985, as the Amiga 2000 was released in 1987. But the guy does say the computer came from eBay, so perhaps this is a replacement for their original Amiga.
- abruzzi 11y agoI'm not sure how the RF interface works, but it it uses a zorro card, the A2000 would be the first computer that could run it. If it used serial, the even a A1000 would be a possible system.
- pacofvf 11y agoI wonder how many software from the 70s and 80s in not so famous languages are lost forever. And if is there an effort to preserve such works?
- HeyLaughingBoy 11y agoWhat for?
- vidarh 11y agoHistory, for starters.
- jes 11y agoHere is one effort. There may be more of course: http://www.textfiles.com/bitsavers/ http://www.textfiles.com/bitsavers/
- nandhp 11y agoThe Computer History Museum has established a Software Preservation Group: http://www.softwarepreservation.org/ http://www.softwarepreservation.org/ They also have artifacts like MacPaint source code in their collection: http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102658076 http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102658076
- teebot 11y agoMichigan hipsters
- organsnyder 11y agoThe GRPS headquarters is dangerously close to Eastown.
- organsnyder 11y agoThe GRPS director of communications just gave a presentation on the bond proposal last night at our neighborhood association meeting. Like any urban district, GRPS has faced a very challenging few decades with declining enrollment, competition from charters and suburban districts, and a largely impoverished student population. They've made huge strides over the past few years, since the current superintendent took over in 2012. It's been really exciting to watch. At the presentation, the spokesman stressed that the previous bond was strictly to shore things up—anything that could be delayed, was. I can see that he wasn't kidding.
- kens 11y agoThe record for obsolete computing probably goes to Sparkler Filters, which still uses an IBM 402 tabulator from 1948 for their accounting. This machine reads information from punch cards, adds it up, and prints reports. That wouldn't be too bad, except this tabulator is before the vacuum tube generation. It is electromechanical, using mechanical counter wheels for addition. It is programmed by plugging dozens of wires into a control panel; each wire indicates something like this card column goes to this adder and that printer column. To change the program, you pull out the panel and replace it with a different panel. The "software library" consists of shelves of panels wired up for each task. This system actually surprisingly sophisticated considering the lack of technology. For instance, there's a mechanical mechanism to suppress leading zeros in numbers. It can print text as well as numbers and supports three levels of subtotals as well as conditionals. It It's also fairly fast, processing 150 cards per minute. Links: http://www.pcworld.com/article/249951/if_it_aint_broke_dont_fix_it_ancient_computers_in_use_today.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/249951/if_it_aint_broke_dont_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_402 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_402 http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/ibm/punchedCard/AccountingMachine/224-1614-13_402-403-419.pdf http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/ibm/punched...
- downandout 11y agoBack when I was in high school, I decided it would be cool to try to hack into the school computer system. I grabbed the white pages, figured out the range of numbers belonging to the school, and fired up my demon dialer. Sadly, the only system that picked up was an HVAC control computer with no authentication. Apparently they figured that no one would find the number. After some experimentation, I was able to change the temperature in specific buildings where I went to class, which was neat for about a day. Anyway, this article makes me wonder if that system is still online.
- ekianjo 11y agoWow, an Amiga still running 30 years later, 24/7! That's solid hardware. As a former Amiga owner, I find this impressive.
- vidarh 11y agoThere are still several forums full of current Amiga users [1] [2] [3] [4] being the most prominent English language ones. The most amazing thing is that there is still new hardware expansion being designed and manufactured for the original machines... [1] http://www.amiga.org http://www.amiga.org [2] http://www.amigaworld.net http://www.amigaworld.net [3] http://www.amigans.net http://www.amigans.net [4] http://eab.abime.net/ http://eab.abime.net/
- nickpsecurity 11y agoThose kind of results are why I encourage copying past designs for new hardware projects in safety-critical space. Especially NonStop architecture, which is patent-free now. Take one of older ones, make it 32-64 bit, put modern interfaces on it, put it on an older SOI process node for reliability, optional lockstep, and the result should run very well for a very long time.
- notvplez 11y agoWas hoping it would be an Amiga, and wasn't disappointed. Though it seems like this particular system is ripe for replacement because of the issues mentioned, I have a lot of respect for staying with old soft- and hardware instead of chasing something new and shiny when the old system still gets the job done. A few years back a seller came to my workplace to ask if we wanted to advertise at our local cinema. We didn't, but I had a chat with the guy and was pleasantly surprised to discover that he was still creating and showing the ads using an A1200 with a genlock card running Scala (25 years old this year, real popular in the nineties with cable companies and broadcasters as big as CNN and BBC). Reason for not upgrading? "It still works great." Put a big smile on my face for the rest of the day.
- kaffeinecoma 11y agoFor those confused by 25 year old Scala: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scala_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scala_(company).
- douche 11y agoThank you. This being HN, I immediately was thinking the FP-ish programming language, which would seem to indicate that it predates the JVM...
- HeyLaughingBoy 11y agoI'm a bit confused: are you saying that the system was running Scala for 25 years? Thought Scala was just a few years ago. And was the genlock card a Video Toaster by any chance?
- notvplez 11y agoThe first version of Scala was released in 1990 if I'm not mistaken, he probably used a later version as he was using a A1200 which had the AGA-chipset that improved graphics considerably. He'd been using it "for about twenty years", and as this was two or three years ago and the A1200 was released in 1992 he probably had a 22 year run on the same hardware and software. He didn't specify the card he used, but I think it's safe to say it was the Video Toaster given its popularity at the time.
- gambiting 11y agoPolish Railways(state owned) had an Odra 1305 machine, manufactured in 1973, still operating on one of their stations until 2010. It's fascinating really. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odra_(computer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odra_(computer)
- frik 11y agoMany companies run on SAP R/3 ABAP (1983) code or even still SAP R/2 ASM code. The ABAP code syntax is somewhat similar to COBOL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABAP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABAP . And many banks still use PL/1 (1964) or COBOL (1959): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PL/I https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PL/I and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COBOL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COBOL . And Fortran (1957) has still the best optimized compilers, surpassing often even C compilers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortran https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortran
- _JamesA_ 11y agoDon't forget about RPG/II/III/IV/LE/... [1][2]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_RPG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_RPG [2]: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/ibm-midrange https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/ibm-midrange
- bane 11y agoI remember a conversation I had with a friend's father, an HVAC engineer. He brought home a control board one-time, showed me the sensor inputs and control outputs. I don't remember how many there were, but let's say a dozen of each. He described how a sensor in would connect to this spot and feed the system temperatures from a sensor in some remote part of the building. The control output would then go to the appropriate HVAC system and turn on/off A/C, heat or whatever to get the temperature to what it needed to be at. The system would spider out around the building with these sensors and regulate the building's temperature. At the heart of the board (which looked like a PC motherboard) was the CPU, a z80, already hilariously ancient when he showed this to me. So I asked him "why not use a more modern CPU?" He responded, "why? This z80 can control an office building's entire HVAC system, and poll each sensor 200 times a second, how many times per second do you need? Temperature in a zone doesn't change that fast." It was my introduction to the concept of "Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpei_Yokoi#Lateral_Thinking_with_Withered_Technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpei_Yokoi#Lateral_Thinking_...
- userbinator 11y agoZ80s are still available new and in IP core form for integration into SoCs... as is the 6502, 8051, and several other "classic" MCUs designed in the late 70s/early 80s. As I'm typing this my keyboard's controller is an 8051 variant, the touchscreen of my phone also uses an 8051, the mouse has a 6502, and the monitors in front of me have an 80186 core in them. They are fast enough for the task, cheap, and development tools widely available, so they really don't need to be replaced.
- qanael 11y agoIt's kind of mind blowing that our cheap peripherals are driven by what used to be top-of-the-line processors only a few decades ago. I guess all that firmware has to run on something.
- vidarh 11y agoAs I mentioned in another comment, already the ca. 1987 Amiga 2000 in this article had a 6502 compatible core on the keyboard controller, and some same era hd controllers had Z80's on them - they were cheap already then.
- chavesn 11y agoHow common are remote radio controllers in historical or modern systems? I think the most interesting part of this article is the use of radio for a wide-area network, even if it only got a passing mention in the article. Some questions I'd love to know: What kind of protocol was used? Are computer uses of walkie-talkie radio bands allowed by the FCC? How do the receivers work? If they don't run on their own microprocessor, how were they designed?
- ChickeNES 11y agoAlmost certainly Packet Radio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packet_radio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packet_radio, probably on the amateur band: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMPRNet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMPRNet
- switchbak 11y agoThis is actually surprisingly novel, and especially impressive given the developer was in high school at the time. Running ethernet to these locations can be challenging, and often an SMS based approach or mesh network is used instead - which is really not that far off from this approach (with some obvious benefits).
- nickpsecurity 11y agoThanks! I knew they used something but nobody ever told me what the old standards were. I'm adding it to my link farm as some call it. Bet I find a use for it, too. :)
- kw71 11y agoThis application should not be allowed in Amateur Radio service, because it's being used as part of a business or government operation. The piece of spectrum this system actually uses, since it is shared with their maintenance radio fleet, is definitely not part of any amateur service allocation ("band") The term 'packet radio' also implies (to me anyway) certain kinds of applications and messages, which don't apply to a system like this. Anyway, if there was some kind of IP or other routable protocol on the air here, that would be overdoing it. The messages probably look more like what you'd find on a multidrop serial bus, with elements including source and destination address, length, payload, checksum. A bunch of FSK modems working on the same radio channel is not much different to a multidrop serial bus.
- webart 11y agoSo from now they don't have to worry about viruses.
- relaxitup 11y agoAt the end of the TV news bit, the GRPS Maintenance Supervisor said something to the effect of "if we had to replace it tomorrow, we would be looking on ebay.. which is where this one came from.." This doesn't make sense if the Amiga has been running for 30 years and was purchased in the 80s. Perhaps he meant a failed part or accessory they had purchased that had failed.
- spiritplumber 11y agoI don't know, Amigas are tough little critters. Part of it is that they're designed to load most of the OS in RAM and keep it there, so there are very few moving parts.
- spiritplumber 11y agoWhy am I not surprised that it's an Amiga? I did a bit of work at NASA-AMES and they were just getting rid of Amiga 1000s used for video compositing.
- damoncali 11y agoWhen I worked on the Hubble Space Telescope in the late 90's I kept hearing the electrical guys talking about the new computer we were going to install. They called it simply, "the 486". I one day joked that I had had a 486 a few years ago in college and maybe they could use that and save some bucks. And they told me it was the same thing - literally an intel 486 processor. They said that the design happened to be very resistant to radiation, and met their purposes very well. I haven't really kept up on it since, but I believe it's still running a humble 486. Granted, the rest of the machine isn't much like my old Dell, but I always found that interesting.
- sliverstorm 11y agoIf memory serves, older process technologies are intrinsically a little more rad-hard, just because a 1um 6T cell is roughly a hundred times larger than a 14nm 6T cell... (giving it greater drive strength and larger "ballast parasitics" to absorb radiation events) They probably built them with a lot more margin back then too.
- drzaiusapelord 11y agoYep, that radiation hardened 486 was used quite a bit. I believe it was used for the Space Shuttle as well. The Mars rovers have moved to a more efficient PowerPC platform, but its still old tech. Radiation hardening CPUs isn't cheap and the processing requirements for what these projects do isn't high (its more sane to just send the data to NASA and have terrestrial computers do all the heavy lifting), not to mention you don't run a bloated desktop OS on these things. A minimalist VxWorks RTOS is typically used. Price? The RAD750 on the Curiosity Rover starts at about a quarter million dollars.
- emp 11y agoThe Space Shuttle should be so lucky - 8086 (though I read 80386 for a cockpit upgrade). First flight 1981, predating the 486 (1989). It's interesting, NASA was raiding all sorts of old machinery to keep in stock of 8086s.
- anocendi 11y agoHackerman exists afterall!
- ape4 11y agoThere is nothing bad about a computer system lasting 30 years. If its the right kinds of system. Desktop computers like this one were never made for this kind of application.
- sharjeel 11y agoAnd here I am reading this article in 2015, with top of the page broken saying "Please install the latest Adobe Flash Player Plugin to watch this content."
- brudgers 11y agoA successful application of agile methodology despite the term having been yet to be invented.
- umanwizard 11y agoSeattle's University Bridge was raised and lowered by an early-80s Compaq until recently. http://blogs.seattletimes.com/today/2014/03/seattles-university-bridge-undergoing-a-reboot/ http://blogs.seattletimes.com/today/2014/03/seattles-univers...
- spacecadet 11y ago1980's computers control most of manufacturing today.
- noonespecial 11y agoA 30-year-old computer that has run day and night for decades... I know its a "ha-ha look at that antique" piece but seriously, how many computers could you buy at BigBox store today that will run for 30 years non-stop? The Amiga was just an off the shelf consumer PC.
- williesleg 11y agoI'll build the replacement for $800k
- johntaitorg 11y agoI thought this was going to be about a C64. You'd have to POKE it to switch the heating on. It. Just. Works. though - they should never upgrade.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- zuron7 11y ago"Don't fix what's not broken."