Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[filiusenox]

The first person to build the Death Star in DF out of obsidian, with a huge magma cannon, will be legendary.

I SHALL DO IT!

[Sensei]

They already made a star destroyer...

[Vester]

But imagine a titanic, spherical fortress, held up by a single support which if destroyed would kill everything.

[DeathOfRats]

But imagine a titanic, spherical fortress, held up by a single support which if destroyed would kill everything.

Is that the Death Star, or a Katamari? 

[blah28722]

Less I'm remembering wrong, NASA uses old computers. Old reliable's better than new flaky, in their opinion.

Now, a meteorological computer on the other hand...

Space shuttles use old comuters, because there really isn't all that need to render 3D images or something in space. They have something like a powerful calculator on spaceships (not as strong as that TI-84 stuff, mind you).

Most of the new stuff do have more computing power though, like the mars rovers and stuff.

[filiusenox]

Im gonna start today.Pray to the gods that i succed.

[Phantom]

I will be here at Arlington if you need me
*Takes out Bugle.*

[Stargrasper]

NASA likes to use really old computer equipment because it's more durable and less susceptible to cosmic radiation.  That second is actually the big one.  There's a LOT of radiation in space and with no ozone layer the protect it, you take the product that doesn't have a natural weakness to radiation.  Seriously, the Pentium 2 is basically the newest processor NASA uses.

[tigrex]

Which means that astronauts can't play DF during those long, boring missions unless they bring their own laptops?  For shame!

@filiusenox:  <praying for successful venture.  Long live the Empire!>

[Baughn]

The computers NASA actually put in space, these days, are radiation-hardened.

This doesn't mean they're old. It means they're new, and designed with sufficient redundancy to handle any conceivable radiation damage; it means having a chip the size of a pentium four, with so much redundancy that it's the speed of a 386. It also means they put them in a radiation chamber for several weeks for "testing" before use.

(Oh, and they don't use the latest etching processes. 45nm may use less power than 200nm, but the latter can take a lot more damage.)

[Armok]

Which means that astronauts can't play DF during those long, boring missions unless they bring their own laptops?  For shame!

@filiusenox:  <praying for successful venture.  Long live the Empire!>

Well, the entire point of it also means that if they brought laptops those would be fried by radiation after a few hours.

[Baughn]

Well, no. The crew compartment is better shielded than that.

A more pressing issue would be that they couldn't power them. The shuttle has a strictly limited power budget.

[riffraffselbow]

Which means that astronauts can't play DF during those long, boring missions unless they bring their own laptops?  For shame!

@filiusenox:  <praying for successful venture.  Long live the Empire!>

Well, the entire point of it also means that if they brought laptops those would be fried by radiation after a few hours.

Not to mention NASA'd have to chuck a few experiments off the shuttle to balance the weight ledgers.

[Sensei]

Bring a laptop with a hand crank generator!

Solve the problems if fitness and boredom in space, all at once!

[vooood]

Which means that astronauts can't play DF during those long, boring missions unless they bring their own laptops?  For shame!

@filiusenox:  <praying for successful venture.  Long live the Empire!>

Well, the entire point of it also means that if they brought laptops those would be fried by radiation after a few hours.

Wait, what type of radiation is that destroys equipment but astronauts still stay in one piece?