Re: FAA To Finally Ditch Floppy Disks & Win-95

c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> wrote:

On 6/13/25 11:35 PM, rbowman wrote:

On Fri, 13 Jun 2025 22:38:38 -0400, c186282 wrote:
 
 

    In any case it's become very clear that a major update is needed for
    the US airport/routing system. Knowing the govt process, the stuff
    will already be obsolete by the time it's installed, but not nearly
    SO obsolete.

 
In the early '70s we had a contract to build the controllers for the ALS
system. The heart of the controller was an Eagle Signal electromechanical
stepping switch which was pretty much obsolete. The harnesses had to be
laced since the FAA wasn't sure about those new-fangled nylon cable ties.

 
  Ooooh ! Nylon ! EVIL !!!   :-)

Not so much that as: Ooooh!, we don't know how well this new "tie"
method will withstand extremes of cold, hot and vibration, and the
current regs.  specify "laced" and we *do* know how lacing withstands
extremes of cold, hot and vibration.

  But yes, it's VERY typical for govt projects to be
  WAY behind the tech curve. The specs are writ, but
  then there's a HUGE delay in the implementation.

  The lunar-lander computer still used "rope memory"
  because of that - even though PROMS and erasable
  PROMS were widely available by the late 60s.

Also because (esp.  for EPROMS) the rope memory was much more radiation
hardened than EPROMS of the day were.  Also, for 'long duration'
projects such as that, often each component is designed and built, then
in the end the various parts are pieced together to produce the "flying
candle" you see on launch.  But the "computer" might have been designed
and built five years before that launch, and minus five years from
today might have meant no PROM or EPROMS were even available at the
time.

  Took a tour of an attack sub in the late 80s - a bud
  of mine was crew so I got the better tour. Ever put
  your hand on a torpedo ? The sonar 'room' was highest
  tech ... but that tech involved a cubic-meter CPU box
  with a few of the old removable-stack hard drives ...
  early 70s/late-60s tech. Same reasons as mentioned -
  the vast delay between conception and realization.

Yep, the entire sub likely took 10+ years to design and build.  By the
time the submariners get to launch their "new" sub, most of the tech on
board would look dated (by the standards of the commercial world)
because it was designed minus ten or minus fifteen years ago, with
posssiby cutting edge tech then, but no longer cutting edge "today".

Few commercial products see more than a couple years of total sales
before they get a "redesign", none of them have been undergoing design
and build for fifteen years when they hit the market.
z

  The sonar guy seemed well versed in making best USE
  of that equipment, but STILL !!!
 
  Some of this is why I'd like people like Musk in the
  loop - chop years, maybe a decade, out of that awful
  process. It's NOT good to be too far behind the curve.

Musk isn't the savior here.  His method (fire everyone then oops.. 
hire back some we really needed) won't work for projects that do really
need years to design and build (because they are largely "one-offs" --
i.e., Navy might have built 10 or 20 subs, Apple builds a million plus
iphones a week).  For something like a sub, you simply won't build one
in six months to a year like for a phone (well, not unless you want it
to implode at depth like that carbon fiber one did a couple years ago).

    There are few radiation-hardened chips coming out these days. We're
    still talking 80s tech. Slow - but robust. Big enough transistors so
    cosmic rays and such won't compromise things.

 
One project I worked on used TI's TMS9900 microprocessor of TI-99/4 fame.
Or notoriety, take your pick. Its claim to fame was TI produced rad-hard
parts. TI had ties to the defense industry that made them a natural.

For electronics that have to go into space, radiation hardened is a
must.  Send your phone into space and in very short order all kinds of
weirdness and corruption will occur.