Re: Rewriting SSA. Is This A Chance For GNU/Linux?

On 2025-04-05 21:20, rbowman wrote:

On Sat, 5 Apr 2025 11:41:11 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
 

Project I worked on was undersea repeater for optical cables.
Probably the worst organised and specified project ever, but that's a by
the by. They said 'you are lucky we are allowed to use a silicon
processor, up to 5 years ago we had to use germanium' 'Why?' Because
that was the only technology more than 15 years old that could be
guaranteed to last the 15 years'

 When we built sequential runway lighting controllers the wire harnesses
had to be laced because the nylon ties used in industry hadn't had a
couple of decades of use.
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_lacing
 Luckily all our techs were women, most of whom had knitting or macrame
skills. The heart of the system was an electro-mechanical stepper that was
also mostly obsolete in industry.
 The SSA probably has people saying 'Rust? Well maybe after it's proven
itself for 60 years like COBOL.'

I prefer cable lacing to the nylon ties.
I have seen nylon ties degrade and break, specially under the sun.
Nylon ties are often tied very tight, so tight that they can damage the cable insulation and perhaps the outer conductors.
Nylon ties cut your hand when you push it trough the mesh of cables trying to get one.
Maybe the #2 and #3 are due to not using a certified tool for tying them, but I have never seen such a tool. It was mentioned, but nobody had one.
Oh, I have seen steel ties, Chinese made.
--
Cheers, Carlos.