Actually, the memory, CPU and bus speeds are low, for amongst other things I suspect, because they opted for EMP hardened military spec chips. Those aren't as densely circuited as what we have today commercially. Certification costs are very high and improvements don't keep pace with commercially available chips. I think we were using a microprocessor on par with the 386 recently on the shuttle orbiter. We take things for granted today by assuming space hardened hardware is on par with the latest "Plentimum Mk 8 Hyper10 Windblows 2010" . Be it remembered we went to the moon with guidance computers less sophisticated than a hand held calculator.
Good also that they are programed in a more widely used programming language. Anyone know what the specs are for the onboard processors? 11k xfer rate is slower than a fax.
Elton
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Thanks for the kind and informative answers in this and the other post, Ron ... At only 128 MB, that sounds surprisingly low ... it's pretty standard on a decent digital camera nowadays (and costs $100 or less, though I guess you have to keep it warm), that many dealers are sporting in Tucson. Also I can add that I recall reading, -don't remember where- that the data transfer rate (e.g., upload and download) for the communication netork / Rover is only around 11 Kbits per second ... if true, that's about one third the rate of a conventional land phone line (read one third of a dial up conection)... so maybe the memory isn't needed (128MB would take very near one Sol to transfer continuously assuming that were possible).
Given the size of Flash Memory, I guess next time there could be an automatic backup safety parallel system that is activated by an independent signal. I.e. a reboot using a simple safety mode. Also, had the programming been in a lower level language, I wonder if the software crash would have been as likely to occur. But this is easy to sit back and contemplate now:)
Saludos, Doug "Tucson" Dawn
In a message dated 2/3/2004 9:02:21 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
What type of operating system or machine language environment is being used? How many megabytes is the total flash memory's capacity?The operating system is VxWorks, a real-time Unix operating system. It was
also used on the Sojourner rover. I've programmed on VxWorks before, and it
is a nice operating system, though I admit I have a Unix bias. Most of the rover's software is in C. The flash memory is 128 MB.
Ron Baalke
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