Antique Voyager Technology 293
sea_stuart writes with a story from the Tidbinbilla space tracking station, outside Canberra, Australia. It is still communicating with the two Voyager spacecraft 30 years after they were launched and 18 years after Voyager 2 passed close by Neptune. Here's a little background on Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. "The bank of computers that would look at home in black-and-white episodes of Doctor Who cannot be junked... [T]he 1970s hardware is now our world's only means of chatting with two robot pioneers exploring the solar system's outer limits. Today Voyager 1 is humanity's most remote object, 15.5 billion kilometers from the sun. Voyager 2 is 12.5 billion kilometers from it. Both continue beaming home reports, but now they are space-age antiques. 'The Voyager technology is so outmoded,' said Tidbinbilla's spokesman, Glen Nagle, 'we have had to maintain heritage equipment to talk to them.'"
Re:I've got an old dell they can use... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:32 bits a second (Score:2, Funny)
I call BS.
Re:Functional replacement with modern components? (Score:5, Funny)
The same software SCATS
Re:I've got an old dell they can use... (Score:5, Funny)
The reason for all that legacy equipment... (Score:5, Funny)
(ring) (ring) (click) G'day, this is Tidbinbilla, how can we help?
"Er, Hi, This is Ranesh from Advanced Emulation Solutions... I'm testing the VM you commissioned to replace your legacy communications solution. Thing is, there seems to be an undocumented bug in the command protocol and the remote client has locked up. Could some one pop over and power-cycle the client, please?
****???^^^^!!!!
Hey - take it easy - "no worries" as you guys say - just turn off the power, count to ten and turn it on again!
$$$$!!!!##### !!!!!
Er, 15.5 billion kilometers, you say? Look, I know you guys like to boast about the size of Australia, but...
$$$$ ****ING OUTER SPACE !!!!! MOST DISTANT MAN-MADE ****ING OBJECT !!!!!
Oh. Shit. I wonderered why the ping time was 24 hours.
Don't you guys have on-site support?
Re:The reason for all that legacy equipment... (Score:3, Funny)
12.5 billion kilometers / speed of light is 11.58 hours.
So 24 hours is just about right! Well done sir.
(although it's closer to 23 hours...)
Re:The reason for all that legacy equipment... (Score:5, Funny)
Takes an hour for the processor on Voyager to unpack an ICMP message, parse the ping, compose a reply, encapsulate and send it.
Re:I've got an old dell they can use... (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Useful information? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:outmoded? (Score:3, Funny)
The IRS seems to be pretty succesful: they still run their 1960s mainframes [com.com], yet they're still pinching everybody's money. That's one mission everybody would like to see fail...
Re:I've got an old dell they can use... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I've got an old dell they can use... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:I've got an old dell they can use... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I've got an old dell they can use... (Score:3, Funny)