Y2K-Like Fears Create Shuttle Scheduling Crunch

New Scientist ^ | 11-6-2006 | Kellt Young

[Bigh4u2]

Time to upgrade from the old '386' to a '486'.

[battlecry]

Thse are brave men and women who fly these machines.

[BenLurkin]

Oh for crying out loud!

[taxcontrol]

LOL - yeah, time for an upgrade that's for sure

[RightWhale]

With all the time between launches it seems like they could change out the motherboard to upgrade from 8-bit to 16-bit.

[Bigh4u2]

I heard they even came out with a 'DX' chip now!

No more SX for me!

Whoo hoo!

[Chode]

i guess just changing the date and time are out of the question...

[Right Wing Assault]

upgrade from the old '386'

Were they up to 386 already??

[Lokibob]

I am working on the Y10K problem, where the year date goes from 4 digits to 5.

Any smart businessman in FReeperland that wants me fix this problem for them, please contact me ASAP.

I have a limited number of contracts I am letting out immediately, however, I guarantee we will have no problems in the year 10,000. (tongue in cheek)

[loungitude]

To reset the time, the shuttle's main computers would have to be 'reinitialised', which would mean a period without navigation updates or vehicle control, a situation NASA obviously wants to avoid.

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Ctrl-Alt-Del ?

[DigitalVideoDude]

So are they saying that no Shuttle has been on orbit during New Year's Eve?

I must look that up.

[Mamzelle]

If rock stars and dot-commers pay $20Million for a ride, how brave do you have to be?

[editor-surveyor]

Interesting.

I would note that the IRS had no problem getting new computers and software in 1999. It's clear where their priorities lie.

[RAWGUY]

Actually it was a VAX 11/780 system, circa 1978, I was there.

[kalee]

ping

[RAWGUY]

It was a VAX 11/780 shadowed system with shared memory. This was a 32 bit system running VMS operating system.

[rottndog]

Long past time to retire these old dawgs.

[Doohickey]

The space shuttle's computer software is about 30 years old and does not recognise when the calendar year switches. On 1 January 2007, for example, it will think it is day 366 of 2006 – a problem NASA calls 'year-end rollover'.

Our government at "work". First, they define the cutting edge, then let it ferment for 30 years. Let me guess: 8 bit instructions? Toroid core memory units? Mag tape transports? Toggle switches to allow the operator to place processor instructions directly on the data bus?

[upchuck]

DEC 11/780... fond memories! What programming language?