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Issue date: 25 November 1999

Article source: Computer Weekly Columns / Opinions

Toil and trouble to put an old chip into Hubble

Next month the Hubble Space Telescope is getting a computer upgrade. The crew of the space shuttle Discovery will spacewalk to the telescope, rip out its 1970s-designed DF224 computer and install a new CPU.

The good news is that the new unit is 20 times more powerful than the old one. The rather surprising news is that it is an Intel 486 PC. Nasa claims the move to a mass-produced Intel-based machine will help cut costs.

Rumours that the unit was salvaged from a rubbish skip in Silicon Valley are being strenuously denied.

Y2K plan a blazing success

There were red faces at the City of Montreal Fire Department last week after one of its stations burnt down as a result of efforts to stave off a year 2000 computer disaster.

The blaze started after fire crews left a pan of chips on the stove and rushed off to answer a local call. The fire department had cleverly installed a breaker switch designed to shut down its station's cookers when firefighters responded to a call. However, it was disabled when the city made its Y2K checks.

The Montreal firefighters' union says more than half the city's fire stations face the same problem.

-- Uncle Bob (UNCLB0B@Tminus35&counting.down), November 26, 1999

Answers

My guess is that the Hubble will never be compliant. It is a tower of Babel that is up against overwhelming odds. The end of the universe is a secret.

-- the Virginian (1@1.com), November 26, 1999.

This ain't no bullsh*t. The Hubble can see through a person's clothing like it's not even there!

-- Ocotillo (peeling@out.===), November 27, 1999.

Now that is a strange story. WHY spend millions of dollars to launch a repair mission, and then install an OLD and OBSELETE CPU unit? 486 processor?! It ought to have a Pentium III or KAMD processor! What's a couple hundred bucks now, for a better one?

Of course, this means that in 2 years, the CPU will need an upgrade to a Pentium I, since the Pentium IV will be out. :)

-- Bill (billclo@msgbox.com), November 27, 1999.