Windows for Warships....

[Aardpsymon]

And as for legacy systems, is NASA still running 086 chips in the Shuttle?
Where are they getting them now that the supply on eBay dried up a
few years back?

They have a couple factories dedicated to producing shuttle spares pretty much. Its not just the shuttles, but the command centre components too and the simulators.

Space shuttles are a joke. 88,000 moving parts or something like that built by the lowest bidder and now 15 years beyond its life expectency. When the columbia blew up the main companies that built bits basically said "what, it still flies at all?"

[fourdc]

"Tell that to the US Post Office where they run Linux to sort the mail.
Even my mailman complains bitterly about the job it does. I don't think
it'll ever get fixed."

Broken,

Hey I work on those machines at the PO, it aint the Linux thats doing it. Its the machine that is also running VMS (yes its a VAX) with another computer patched in running NT4. Then there's the other machine that is running QNX and Windows XP. They all talk to an Alpha running openVMS. We also have other cross communications going on through a Silicon Graphics running Irix.

Most of this traffic is on a 10base5 net. Plus we hire the programmers that everyone else fires. You want to guess why your mail is screwed up?

[brokencrow]

I should've known better than to rely solely on my mailwoman for the
facts. She barely knows how to email someone. She handles my certified
mail for me though. I stand corrected.

[Aardpsymon]

want me to hack a nuclear submarine, blow up all the PO infrastructure so you have to start again with real hardware?

[nihil]

Well, the basics are:

Input ------> Processing -------> Output.

So integration is really an applications issue, rather than an operating system one. I have worked in environments where Mainframe, AS/400, Unix and Windows boxes were integrated without problems.

DEC/VAX boxes have been integrated with other systems for years........they are fine process control machines.

Over here, it is frequently a problem that government systems "just grow" rather than arise as the result of a structured and managed development process. That is how you get the "it fits where it touches" feeling.

[fourdc]

We had real hardware in the 80s. We built a system around Digital Equipment, at the time a great computer company. They failed, were bought up and killed by Compaq who in turn was swallowed by HP. We like a lot of industrial applications were left high and dry.

Our next gen machines that are rolling in are based on XP prof. Our in plant infrastructures are planned to be upgraded to fiber. It's slow, but we're definitely the trailing edge.

Nukes wouldn't help

[MURACU]

Havent the american navy been using windows on ships for years now?

[dalek]

Havent the american navy been using windows on ships for years now?

Probably did, we weren't able to tell, cause we had no windows on our subs....

[nihil]

MURACU, I think that they first started with Win NT 4.0. back in the 90's but mostly they used Unix.

[fourdc]

In the late 70s and early 80s they had there own system called NTDS. Navy tactical Data System, they loved Sperry/Univak systems.

I remember having to run diagnostics using paper tape and punching in commands in assembly language in binary using switches. That particular computer was 16 bit.

We drooled over the Apple when it came out. Apple had an operating system.