NASA allowing access to it's software.

teal'c

Nuclear Cardiac Parent
https://software.nasa.gov/

The NASA Software Catalog offers an extensive portfolio of software products for a wide variety of technical applications.

Haven't found anything I can use yet, but the "Worldview" satellite imagery browsing and downloading tool might have potential.
 
Yah, but you need at least a 286 with DOS6 and 10 mb of memory to run it ... :rolleyes:

PS ... I just tried downloading a copy of their Eyes on the Earth 3D and got routed to a several page long "software usage agreement" that would seem to imply it's more for public institutions, corporate partners, and such. I considered filling out the form with the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology as my sponsor, but those black helicopters aren't as quiet as you'd expect, and I need to get some sleep tonite ... <G>
 
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Yah, but you need at least a 286 with DOS6 and 10 mb of memory to run it ... :rolleyes:

PS ... I just tried downloading a copy of their Eyes on the Earth 3D and got routed to a several page long "software usage agreement" that would seem to imply it's more for public institutions, corporate partners, and such. I considered filling out the form with the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology as my sponsor, but those black helicopters aren't as quiet as you'd expect, and I need to get some sleep tonite ... <G>
:rflmao::rflmao::rflmao:
 
Yah, but you need at least a 286 with DOS6 and 10 mb of memory to run it ... :rolleyes:

If it'll make you sleep any better, most nuke plants in the US were designed on some pretty ancient hardware, some of it pre IBM S/360...

The plant computers at a few until recently, weren't much newer. Some CANDUs in Canada had process computers that were so old, they didn't have microprocessors, they had TTL chips everywhere instead. i think a few were even based on the SLT of the IBM S/360...

More on topic, the Space Shuttle's computer were really old - they had core memory in them. This was actually a good thing, since core is more resistant to space radiation.
 
... surprised they didn't stick with tubes! <G>

Worth mentioning, the AP-101 was upgraded in the early '90's to use semiconductors.

Actually, using tubes might not have been all that far fetched. Each AP-101 used over 600 watts of power at full load. Yikes! Imagine the same computers in the Gemini capsule for Apollo 13 ... stick a fork in em, buddy! Game Over!!
 
I read somewhere that at the end of the space shuttles life, NASA was buying old 286's as some of the computers used that processor.
 
You're saying my old AST 286 might have done a few orbits? Kewl!! <G>

Fond memories of that beast - with the Above Board and Six Pack Plus upgrades, it had almost as much power as my new toaster ...

Still using the keyboard ... thing's built like a tank it is. No muffled clickity click - more like CLACKITY CRUNCH ... tends to stay where you put it too, unlike them cute lil things they sell nowadays.
 
I was at NASA Goddard a few years ago (5?) and got a tour of a facility there. I was told that the satellite that they were assembling was running Intel 486 processors. There was one in a box on the table outside the clean room where the work was underway. I was told that they used the 486 because it had enough processing power, and that it uses internal wiring that, in comparison to contemporary CPUs at the time, is very large and therefore robust against damage from radiation exposure. Reliability is crucial in spacecraft hardware.

The Shuttle was designed in the 1970s, way before Intel 286, which appeared in the early 80s.
 
Most of the traffic lights in Germany are running on 186 CPUs since that are the only ones that still clock stable at -20C and below in winter :)
 
Yah, but you need at least a 286 with DOS6 and 10 mb of memory to run it ... :rolleyes:

PS ... I just tried downloading a copy of their Eyes on the Earth 3D and got routed to a several page long "software usage agreement" that would seem to imply it's more for public institutions, corporate partners, and such. I considered filling out the form with the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology as my sponsor, but those black helicopters aren't as quiet as you'd expect, and I need to get some sleep tonite ... <G>
:rflmao::rflmao::rflmao:
 
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