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Space Science

NASA Parts Scroungers Resort To eBay For Parts 243

Posted by timothy from the no-reserve-must-see-1st-owner dept.
beggs writes: "The New York Times is running this article about NASA using ebay and other web resources to find for sale stock piles of old hardware it needs to keep the Space Shuttle fleet up and running -- things like 8086 chips from pre-PC days!" Come to think of it, this might be a better way to take care of most NASA bidding anyhow.
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NASA Parts Scroungers Resort To eBay For Parts More

NASA Parts Scroungers Resort To eBay For Parts

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    • So to keep the shuttles flying, the space agency has begun trolling the Internet -- including Yahoo and eBay -- to find replacement parts for electronic gear that would strike a home computer user as primitive.

      Considering NASA's lack of enough public support to prevent funding cuts in its budget, I find it odd that they have resorted to "trolling the internet"... Seems like the would be better off without all those negative mod points.

      Doh!

  • Interesting... (Score:5, Funny)

    by BrianGa ( 536442 ) on Saturday May 11, 2002 @12:51PM (#3502705)
    What is NASA's feedback rating, and do they take/pay by Paypal?

  • i wonder if (Score:2, Funny)

    by waspleg ( 316038 )
    NASA has a good feedback rating

    it would definitely suck to get into a bidding war with them either way..
  • Why dont NASA buy that russian space shuttle that was for sale as we saw this week here on slashdot? :)) For 6 millions that is a bargain and it is much better than NASA space shuttle...

  • Its about time (Score:1, Redundant)

    by The-Pheon ( 65392 )
    for me to start hoarding 8086's!

    My economics courses are all a blur, but..
    Less supply -> higher cost

    of course, there isn't much demand ;O)

  • NASA outbid me (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 11, 2002 @12:56PM (#3502731)
    NASA outbid me on a set of Star Wars collectable Burger King glasses from 1983. This is your tax dollars at work! Those fuckers won the auction too! They must have used some space-based technology to outbid me at the evry last second!

  • It's NASA's problem now... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Matt2000 ( 29624 ) on Saturday May 11, 2002 @12:56PM (#3502732) Homepage

    ...but it'll increasingly be all of our problems in the future. A lot of really smart people are worried about the computer industry's quick pace and are worried that it's unsustainable. If I have a computer that I bought 15 years ago that's running a critical function in my workplace, it quickly becomes more expensive (in hardware costs) to support that piece of equipment than it does to buy a whole new machine. That's fine except that we then need to convert all the data over to new formats and operating systems, interface all our surrounding systems with the new system and generally spend a bunch of time and money replicating the functions of the old machine.

    Sure, it's rarely ever that simple a scenario, but the computer industry should spend a bit more time thinking about sustainable growth rather than the next 300 Mhz of CPU performance.

    • Re:It's NASA's problem now... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by swb ( 14022 ) on Saturday May 11, 2002 @01:05PM (#3502771)
      Aren't most mission-critical business systems already taking this into account?

      We're running an HP3000 running MPE here. Most of the applications running on it are running code nearly 30 years old. HP is phasing out the 3000, but I'm guessing that the platform will remain runnable for at least another 10 years (5 years of legacy support from HP, and 3rd party beyond that).

      I agree with you the breakneck pace of change is kind of nutty, but I don't think the impact is as dire as you claim outside the PC arena.

      Plus, some of the changes being made are more than cosmetic Mhz changes -- the increased processing power brings real new functionality. If you don't upgrade, your competitors might, leaving you behind in terms of performance and functionality.
    • If all the protocols and standards you use are open, then this shouldn't be a problem. Replacing a 10 year old mail server doesn't mean going back to the company that sold it to you, it means finding new SMTP software that fits your need and then using SMTP to transfer your email from one system to the other.

      Obviously, this is a simplified example, but striving for openness and transparency in your original buying decision should make upgrading a lot easier.
      • The real problem with this is that is just now, within say the last 5 years or so, becomming a common practice. Sure, we've had open protocols for many more years than that, but c'mon, what about all the businesses who where convinced by vendors that their proprietary stuff was "more well suited for your particular application"? They're gonna have a hell of a time.

        I cite as an example the local hospital here about 5-6 years ago began updating their old VAX-style mainfame and VT100 terminals (from probably the 70s sometime) to shiny "new" Windows 95 and NT machines. They spent about $1 million on it, incuding new networking and employee training. A few weeks ago, they upgraded again, for a cost of $3 million this time, to another Windows NT/XP solution, again with training for fewer people this time and they had to hire about 30 people to trnasfer all records form the old system to the new one because the new system didn't use any standards. Wouldn't it be easier to have a server with some flavor of SQL (Oracle to keep the suits happy?) and a few programmers to create and maintain a front-end app that would work well on whatever types of PCs the hospital uses (their quite partial to IBM)? I'm sure it would save a ton of money in the long run since they seem to liek to upgrade every few years. If the data just worked or the server/clients could be upgraded seperately as needed, they' woudl save millions in efficiency.

        Of course, that's money that the medical computing systems' vendors dont' get to make. So it'll never happen. Methinks it's unfortunate how capitalism and technological advances have a tendancy to choke each other to death.
    • Have you ever read 'A Deepness in the Sky' by Vernor Vinge? In it he talks about how the computer systems that they use on their spacecraft are built on top of eons of other systems, and so they required very many 'programmer-architects.' Programmer-architects were able to explore the system and find ways of dealing with the huge number of inconsistencies, bugs, and other errors that came from running such a complicated system.
    • Which harkens back to why the Peruvian government is mandating that all software be open source. It seems that you made their point for them...
    • As the industry matures, most have figured out that thinking this way is a Bad Thing(tm). That is, painting yourself into a corner than you cannot get (or upgrade) yourself out of is what is insane.

      The market will provide what the market demands. Right now, this is the continuing competition of vendors in the consumer market.

      There are large groups that have woken up to the fact that the hardware they've run 'x' on is no longer available, and have even realized that pigeonholing themselves into such a solution is tremendously costly down the road, which is why they've begun to look at what is available in the consumer market, and how they can leverage it for better future maintenence, support, etc...

      This is why you see organizations like the US Armed Forces evaluating PC-based solutions for a wide variety of battle and non-battle worthy applications. The fact of the matter is that, rather than designing closed systems, in many cases its better to use what is readily available and used in the market. And, more importantly, designing things with EOL (end-of-life) in mind, with an upgradable exit plan in mind.

      Asking the market to slow itself down, against the continued demand for such leaps in performance and capabilities, is like pissing into a firehose--it may give you that warm cuddly feeling of trying speak up against the evils of a capitalist society, but you still just end up wet, covered in your own pee.

  • Finally... A justification for some S&H costs. (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Finally a justification for some of the absurd shipping and handling costs some of the ebay sellers charge....... They can now claim its for going to space....

  • Heehee (Score:1, Redundant)

    by Devil's BSD ( 562630 )
    Now you know how to get your $6 million Russian Space Shuttle *state-of-the-art*.

  • Transmeta/FPGA? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by larien ( 5608 ) on Saturday May 11, 2002 @01:00PM (#3502750) Homepage Journal
    Couldn't Transmeta chips (which are programmable to a degree) or FPGA's be an answer in the longer term? Obviously, a lot of the reason for requiring 8086 chips is down to form factor etc, but couldn't converters be made to help out?
    • The problem is never finding a replacement technology, it's finding the time and money to replace the old technology. Even if you clone the 8086 you have to fit it into the same socket and then make sure it has the same power supply requirements, heat dissipation, height above the circuit board, doesn't hit a nearby component, etc, etc.

      My experiment at work runs off a computer from ebay. Replacing the software and I/O hardware is the ideal solution, but would take far too much time, and time is scarcer than a NuBus Mac.
    • No. Anything but a direct replacement would require significant design effort, debugging and testing and you can never be quite sure that subtle differences won't cause problems later.

      Besides, it's much cheaper to scavenge:

      A promising lead turned false. Finally, a board was found. It cost $500.

      "That's very inexpensive," Mr. Renfroe said. "To hire a design engineer for even one week would cost more than that."

    • Re:Transmeta/FPGA? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by glueball ( 232492 )
      Sometimes, a clone processor is too fast, has improper impedence, or not made just right. I've seen perfectly good clone processors not work because they didn't interact with the black magic in the rest of the system correctly. In older systems, you use an oscilliscope signal analyser to see how a digital system was working.

      If the rise time on a signal is too fast, you may disrupt the system. If the rise time is too slow, you may disrupt the system. Same with settle time.

      Bottom line: Sometimes the best replacement is not a clone, but rather an original part off the original fabrication line from the original lot. There are people who do nothing but look for the old stashes of outdated processors/ASICs/FPGAs, and they live very well. People would be amazed at what an unused 15 year old processor would go for.

      Anyone see a stack of i860's around???

      Bill

    • Re:Transmeta/FPGA? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Daemonik ( 171801 )
      The greatest hindrance in using a modern CPU is that none of them are rated for use in space. Exposure to various amounts of cosmic radiation can play havoc with the super-compact transisters.

      I believe the last chip to achieve a spaceworthy rating was the 486. The Hubble Telescope is currently carrying a 386. :)

      http://www.klabs.org/DEI/Processor/386_486/Radiati on/intel.htm [klabs.org]

    • Re:Transmeta/FPGA? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ender81b ( 520454 ) <wdinger@g m a il.com> on Saturday May 11, 2002 @03:08PM (#3503188) Homepage Journal
      I believe the real reason NASA is looking for 8086 chips and not changing is simple - they work. Why change?

      Also, don't forget that in space the chips need to be hardened against EM raditation of all kinds. It is apparently very difficult to do on modern chips, slightly easier on old ones. In the long run (next shuttle) they might use Transmeta but... if it ain't broke don't fix it. A proven technology that works is just fine.

      Is it just me or isn't it kindof sad that the damm shuttle can run on a couple (3 actually I think) 8086 put to run fscking win2000 i need about 100x the processing power...
      • the damm shuttle can run on a couple (3 actually I think) 8086

        Actually, the shuttle flight computer systems are 5 times redundant. All 5 systems must agree or an error is generated. If 1 of the 5 parallel systems doesn't agree, they get concerned but will launch if the mission is important. If 2 of the 5 disagree, no launch.
    • No. That would require re-certification of the whole unit instead of just the part as it would be something completely new. One mistake and it might cause a catastrophe not unlike the Challenger accident.

      These parts have to be generally rad resistant (the 8086 is that compared to most other parts...) capable of handling the thermal variances and the mechanical abuse that they'd get on the Shuttle. The Transmeta's not been ever rated for this sort of thing for starters and that right there jumps up the price considerably, even if you could guarantee that it DID work as designed in the original application- so much so that it IS cheaper scrounging for surplus 8086's at this point.

  • It's a damn shame. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by austus ( 199520 ) <austus@gm[ ].com ['ail' in gap]> on Saturday May 11, 2002 @01:02PM (#3502755) Homepage
    Go ahead an mod me down because this is basically an emotional outburst, but I really think it is completely sad that society lacks the collective intelligence to see how important organizations such as NASA really are. The possibility of impact by an asteroid or other large space object alone justifies financing NASA adequately.
    • It's not a funding thing. It's just that they don't exactly sell 8086 chips and whatnot at the local BestBuy or CompUSA anymore. So rather then pay a bloody fortune to manufacture these chips, or at least pay someone to do it, if they can get used hardware on eBay for a tiny fraction of the cost of production of one new unit, therefore leaving more cash in the budget to protect you from the near-earth objets you're so worried about, I'm all for it. Then again, it's not MY money their using. I'm Canadian.
    • NASA is a vestige of the Cold War. The US and Russia had a gigantic pissing contest in space to show of Marxism vs Freedom. Freedom won 10 years ago but the people who have jobs in the space program (just like military contractors) want us to waste out money to continue the nonsense.
      • that viewpoint will be great until the food riots start!

  • Editors distort story *sigh* again (Score:4, Informative)

    by FearUncertaintyDoubt ( 578295 ) on Saturday May 11, 2002 @01:03PM (#3502760)
    Troves of old parts that NASA uncovers and buys, officials said, are used not in the shuttles themselves but in flotillas of servicing and support gear.

    NASA is not so stupid as to not contract for replacement parts for the actual shuttle from subcontractors. This is just for support gear. Probably quite a bit of this gear is custom-built by NASA engineers, like programmers who build their own toolkits. As the article says, it's easier to just scrounge up a board than pay someone to redesign some piece of equipment to use updated components.

  • Why are you making fun of this. More private enterprise and being cost effective will really help NASA. Although I suppose there is something that's just funny about NASA bidding on e-bay, although it's possible it's just a joke/hoax.

  • NASA isnt the only one... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kyfho ( 324105 ) on Saturday May 11, 2002 @01:05PM (#3502772) Homepage
    I used to have the same problem in the Navy. Ever try and find a D.C. power supply for a VT100, or how about a head assembly for a RL02 disk drive? I finally started scrounging in local collage electronic surplus piles to keep my systems running. Just goes to show that systems made 20-30 years ago were built to last.

  • Hrm. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Jonny 290 ( 260890 ) <brojames@duSLACK ... net minus distro> on Saturday May 11, 2002 @01:06PM (#3502776) Homepage
    Oh Lord, I can see the auction titles now.

    "FIRST CLASS! Slightly used moon capsule, 8/10, L@@K!"

    "Tired of having no way to get to low earth orbit? Click here! BEST SHUTTLE ON EBAY!"

    "VINTAGE EMPTY SATURN ROCKET STAGE--W0W! MAKES GREAT GRAIN SILO!"

    (and yes, i know they're buying, not selling.)
  • But I had my money on HMO's using this practice first!
  • Maybe they should get some of Sally Struthers friends to appeal for parts...well it worked on Southpark !

  • Shuttles until 2020 (or beyond), B-52s until 2040, (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Mordant ( 138460 ) on Saturday May 11, 2002 @01:15PM (#3502802)
    it seems like we can't make any cool, upgradeable large-scale systems, anymore.

    What did we do when we needed large, mobile cruise-missile & artillery platforms? Why, we loaded up then-forty-year-old Iowa-class battleships, ships so old that it was tough finding personnel who knew how to work the guns!

    The shuttle uses early-70s technology. The B-52, the first prototype of which flew in 1949 (!), is still our #1 conventional heavy bomber, and is a testament to forward-thinking in terms of modularity. But it seems that the trend is towards more monolithic, use-it-and-then-throw-it-away-and-buy-a-new-one systems.

    Which is great for the suppliers, but not so great for the consumers (and in the case of NASA and DoD, the taxpayers).

    I can generally get about 2 years of useful life out of a desktop PC, perhaps upgrading the RAM, video adaptor and CD/DVD/latest-useful-removeable-media drive along the way. I can get about 18 months of use out of a laptop, upgrading the RAM at some point. I can get 3-5 years out of a car, a (potentially) lifetime of use out of a good watch or a gun.

    But the design principles I see in operation today are very much oriented towards disposability. Which is a bit of a problem when we're talking about multibillion-dollar systems.

    What's the answer? For space, let private enterprise develop their own, market-driven Pull out of the Outer Space Treaty (http://www.state.gov/www/global/arms/treaties/spa ce1.htmlmodel. ), and let's start mining those asteroids! NASA can do science, while the Solar System is pioneered by those imbued with that most useful of human motivations - pure, unadulterated greed.

    For defense, I'm not so sure. The bureaucracy is so bloated and elephantine, and so many different factions are constantly trying to keep their rice-bowls from being broken, I'm unsure -what- it would take to reform their procurement methodologies. If September 11th isn't enough of a wakeup call that we need to move both quicker and smarter, I don't know what would serve.
    • Sept 11 didn't make people any smarter. No they sent off the army to a country that has more problems then just the taliban. Beat up the taliban and now what? Try to prevent civil war from starting up again? I think the situation there has great potential of becoming another festering pocket of trouble ready to burst uppon the world again.

    • Re:Shuttles until 2020 (or beyond), B-52s until 20 (Score:5, Insightful)

      by GigsVT ( 208848 ) on Saturday May 11, 2002 @01:55PM (#3502901) Journal
      I can generally get about 2 years of useful life out of a desktop PC, perhaps upgrading the RAM, video adaptor and CD/DVD/latest-useful-removeable-media drive along the way. I can get about 18 months of use out of a laptop, upgrading the RAM at some point. I can get 3-5 years out of a car, a (potentially) lifetime of use out of a good watch or a gun.

      Tsk Tsk, you propose a radical answer, when your "question" is fundamentally flawed.

      I buy a gun, lets say a .38 caliber relvolver. A fine piece of craftsmanship. It will be working long after I am rotting in the ground somewhere if I take care of it. It does one thing, it shoots little chunks of hot lead at subsonic speeds.

      If I buy a computer, and I keep using the same software that came out designed for said computer, and I take care of it, I don't keep it in humid environments, I don't let it overheat, etc, then I'm sure it will last long after I am dead too.

      It's only because you want to run new, bloated software, designed for new, bloated computers, that you have to upgrade so often.

      It's like trying to shoot 357 magnums out of your 38. Sure, they fit in the chamber, but that isn't the gun that bullet is designed for. Don't be surprised if it doesn't work.
        • If I buy a computer, and I keep using the same software that came out designed for said computer, and I take care of it, I don't keep it in humid environments, I don't let it overheat, etc, then I'm sure it will last long after I am dead too.

        Well, you're computer may or may not survive for decades if it's taken care of optimally.

        On the other hand, numerous subsystems may fail and if they are no longer manufactured, you may have to retool with one of those new machines.

        This is the forward thinking planning that has to go on at places like NASA. If we depend on computers that are decades old, then we have to make usre there are still parts.

      • If I buy a computer, and I keep using the same software that came out designed for said computer, and I take care of it, I don't keep it in humid environments, I don't let it overheat, etc, then I'm sure it will last long after I am dead too.

        Don't bet on it. Those little metal cylindrical cans on the motherboard are generally electrolytic caps with a goo sort of electrolyte... they dry out after 10-20 years. Not sure about tantalum electrolytic chip caps.
    • The B-52, the first prototype of which flew in 1949 (!), is still our #1 conventional heavy bomber, and is a testament to forward-thinking in terms of modularity. But it seems that the trend is towards more monolithic, use-it-and-then-throw-it-away-and-buy-a-new-one systems.

      One of my coworkers was a crew chief in the early 90's for a B-52 that was built in 1962. He said, even though the plane may be fourty years old, so many parts (nose, wings, tail, fuselage sections, navcomp, weapons, et cetera) have been replaced over time that the build date of the plane is more like 1980-something.

      Cheers,
      LV
      • One of my coworkers was a crew chief in the early 90's for a B-52 that was built in 1962. He said, even though the plane may be fourty years old, so many parts (nose, wings, tail, fuselage sections, navcomp, weapons, et cetera) have been replaced over time that the build date of the plane is more like 1980-something.

        Every few years, they basically take the plane apart and put it together. Since many of the parts are no longer available from the original manufacturers, the facility [af.mil] that does this work has the ability to build pretty much any needed replacement part from scratch by measuring/analyzing/reverse-engineering the originals. (There was a story linked by /. a few months ago about the Air Force sending a B-52H to OCALC to be refitted and turned over to NASA to replace its B-52B launch aircraft [nasa.gov], but I can't seem to locate it.)

    • I disagree.

      B-52's did a fine job in the gulf war of 1991 and kosov. Why upgrade? I believe the b-52 bombers and the more modern aircrafts still use the same old early 20th century technology. They are more expensive but only slightly more efficient. Something newer may not be a whole lot better but would cost alot more. As a taxpayer I do not want a more modern jet. I pay too much as it is for military operations and for more b-52's. The b-52 was made to be modular and upgradable. You can just upgrade the computers and put more modern gps guided missiles on them as tine goes on. The stealth jets just use some fancy materials and designs to knock radar beams away from it but its still based on the same concept.
    • a (potentially) lifetime of use out of a good watch or a gun.

      Depends on what you're using it for.
      Some uses makes for a very short lifetime...
    • > I can get 3-5 years out of a car, a (potentially) lifetime of use out of a good watch

      My oldest car is an '89. (Well, I have a '78 Alfa too, but that's more of a pile of parts than a car as such at the moment and for the foreseeable future). I've only recently bought it, but I expect to get at least three years out of it, and the previous owner got more than five.

      And I'm wearing a 1940's watch right now. It was my father-in-law's, and we think he bought it second hand when he was doing National Service in submarines. At the time, there was no such thing as a cheap reliable accurate waterproof watch. These days I could buy six or so equally functional watches for what I paid just to have this one serviced, so it only made sense for the sentimental value.

  • Check with IBM... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by warpSpeed ( 67927 ) <slashdot@fredcom.com> on Saturday May 11, 2002 @01:17PM (#3502805) Homepage Journal

    They could get an IBM Mainframe running Linux [linuxtoday.com], then partition it out to 40,000 virtual instances, and have each one running Bochs [sourceforge.net] to emulate all the 8086 chips they need.

    You know, it would probably still be cheaper then maintining what they have now in the way of hardware.

    Problem is that they would need a third booster to get it and the power plant off the ground....

    • of course maybe the tiny area in the shuttle that contains a single 8086 processor may be just a little too small to fit a new zSeries, or PC for that matter.
    • Not to mention they would have to harden it against EM radiation plus get around the whole lag between the shuttle and the satelite and then quality control the thing to death.

      Or, worse yet, some astronaught gets bored and decides to play Tux racer and crashes the whole damm system.

      If it ain't broke don't fix it.
    • The mainframe probably won't fit and will use a bazllion times more power than that 8086 chip. NASA uses outdated (at least in the desktop/server market) chips because they don't need the processing power and have energy requirements. The Mars rover had a 486 (?) for these reasons.
    • That doesn't work when the 8086 is being used in an embedded system running real-time software and supporting a bunch of custom I/O circuits.
  • upgrading, is that new technology is often the stepladder to see further ahead.

  • I find this hard to believe... (Score:5, Informative)

    by bjtuna ( 70129 ) <<brian> <at> <intercarve.net>> on Saturday May 11, 2002 @01:22PM (#3502823) Homepage
    I remember reading somewhere, that in order to supply parts to the military or NASA, you have to contractually agree to continue producing (or be able to produce) the purchased parts for something like 30 years, because equipment like jets and space shuttles are built to have a 30 year life span. Intel, when contracted, presumably agreed that they have to be able to make an 8086 until the space shuttle is no longer used.

    So either the contract has expired and the shuttles have exceeded their lifespan, or Intel has broken its contract.

    • Re:I find this hard to believe... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by aallan ( 68633 ) <<alasdair> <at> <babilim.co.uk>> on Saturday May 11, 2002 @01:52PM (#3502894) Homepage

      So either the contract has expired and the shuttles have exceeded their lifespan, or Intel has broken its contract.

      The the "design lifetime" of the shuttle was around 100 flights. Based on this the most of the shuttles have only burned a quarter to a third of their design lifetimes.

      On the other hand, the shuttles have been flying for over 20 years, the first flight [nasa.gov] was in 1981. NASA was, initally at least, anticipating a much higher number of flights per year, in theory this means that they were really expecting to take them out of service during the early to mid-nineties. I remember hearing 15 years as being the expected design lifetime back in the '80's.

      I guess you take their pick, depending on how you want to look at it, they're only a quarter of the way through their design lifetime, or they're outlived their design lifetime by five years (possibly more).

      Al.
    • If you read the article, you'd understand that this doesn't apply here because the shuttles were originally intended to have a ten year operational lifetime.
    • Or maybe they think they are paying intel to much, and know they can get it cheaper.

      And they might think why bother with a contract for older parts.

  • So to keep the shuttles flying, the space agency has begun trolling the Internet -- including Yahoo and eBay -- to find replacement parts for electronic gear that would strike a home computer user as primitive.

    That sounds incredibly dangerous. What if someone was able to somehow place a trojan into the parts they sell to NASA? Maybe in the bios, or something.

  • I have some 16kb x 1 and 4kb x 1 chips.


    I still have my apple ][+ clone with a Z80B card and 5.25 inch 143k floppy drives.


    I'd give NASA a discount since it is my own money.

  • Is that an old computer in your basement? (Score:4, Funny)

    by forged ( 206127 ) on Saturday May 11, 2002 @01:29PM (#3502834) Homepage Journal
    Quotting the original article:
    • That old computer in your basement? NASA is not interested.
    Trolls will be disappointed !
  • If they get ripped off by a seller? Would sure be a great way to cut down on fraud, if all the slimeballs on eBay had the possibility of committing fraud to the US gov't and paying the piper for it
  • Why dont they just set up an extranet for suppliers to bid on? That would be a great tool for them, and a way to get some good prices while they're at it!

    I agree that its really sad that they are "reduced" to this, but is it really so bad? hell I think its about time, at least ONE government org has some sense.

    The other thing that this probably encourages is aggregation. They could potentially plan across many disciplines, and buy in a larger volume that way, satisfying more groups, and cutting costs.
  • Come on, the original IBM PC was BUILT with an 8086, along with several clone manufacturers, only terminating in the late 80's with the short release of the 80186 and then the introduction of the 80286... So how is the 8086 "Pre PC"?
    • >Come on, the original IBM PC was BUILT with an 8086

      No, the original IBM PC was built with an 8088.

      >only terminating in the late 80's with the short
      >release of the 80186

      No, the 80186 is still in use. It's a processor for use in embedded systems, not PCs.

      -l
      • Actually,

        With M$ Windows version 1.0, the kit came with a 16 bit isa card that had a bus mouse connection, some extra ram, and a 8086 processor. I still got an old epson with the thing running for nostalgic value.
  • I was wondering why the winning bid for those two 256k, 30 pin sims I bid on was 1.8 billion dollars. Christ I spent 11 straight hours trying to out bid them.........
  • but weren't 8086 processors used in the first IBM PC's? The XT class running at 4.77 mhz?
    • The 8086 was the original "ibm" pc chip ... Interestingly enough, the 8086 was *16* bit, whereas the 8088 although made later was 8 bit ( to reduce costs). This is probably why NASA is having trouble finding the more expensive/rare part.
      • "The 8086 was the original "ibm" pc chip."

        Depends on exactly what you consider a "pc". The predecessors of the IBM PC that debuted in 1981 were the 5150, which used an IBM main processor and an Intel 8080 (8-bit) as the communication controller, the DataMaster S/23, which used the 8085 (again 8-bit), and the DisplayWriter, which used the 8086 (a 16 bit chip).

        The 1981 IBM PC used the 8088, which was sort of an 8086 modified to interface with an 8-bit external bus. They went with an 8-bit machine to enable the use of already available 8-bit peripherals, software, etc, and to keep the cost down, but used the 8088 because so much of it was really 8086 technology and that set them up to move on to the 286 (which was already on the way--the 8086 was 3 or 4 years old at the time) in some future model.

        The 8088 chip probably sold for less than the 8086, especially after IBM's success with the PC got the ball rolling towards that whole "massive demand eventually leads to massive mass production which eventually results in healthy price reductions after the early adopters have finished getting hosed paying off the R&D".

  • Geeks unite and donate! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jeff_grady ( 22605 ) on Saturday May 11, 2002 @02:02PM (#3502929)
    NASA should post a list of the parts they need on the web. I'm definitely a geek who would scrounge my boxes of old junk if it meant helping NASA.
    • This was my first thought. I would gladly give anyone some of the ancient hardware I have collected if they were going to use it.
    • From the article:
      That old computer in your basement? NASA is not interested. The agency and its contractors do not buy equipment from individuals but instead use Web searches as a way of finding stockpiles of old parts. They then buy them in bulk for repairing old machinery and building inventories of spare parts.

      Not that the original post is a good idea. NASA could scrounge up some grassroots support by taking a donation of some old hardware and returning you, for example, a signed certificate of where your hardware is in use and what applications it might have within NASA.

      Forcing yourself to buy in bulk from companies means two things.
      1. Testing. That one item "pulled from a working PC" is much more likely to have been tested than a lot of 50 whatevers of unknown origin.
      2. Price. Most of the times I see lots of items going up on ebay, they're overpriced compared to buying components individually. I'd like to see NASA's reasoning for not buying from individuals.

      Anybody have some insight here to NASA's reasoning?
  • From my computer architecture class we learned that Intel, instead of building processors from scratch, builds new processors on top of existing ones. In other words, you can set a bit on the P3 or P4 to emulate the 8086. Why can't they just do that? I mean, you will need to build an "adaptor" per se to have it set a bit to get the chip into 8086 mode, but after which, it will function exactly like an 8086 chip.
    • all the electronics in spacecraft are typically customized versions of existing ones, mainly to protect from radiation, extreme error correction and other things.

      A P4 wouldnt last more than a few minutes in a space environment. Single bit errors galore on something as susceptible as that..

      • As I posted in my previous post, the article specifically mentioned that these chips will not be used *on* the space shuttle, but rather on testing equipment that will be land based. If this is the case, it will not encounter the problems that you've mentioned.
  • I don't believe NASA is actually buying things for use on actual Shuttle hardware, either. However, this reminds me of thinking which got NASA in big, big trouble, and left seven astronauts very, very dead.

    Part of the conclusions of the Rogers Investigation of the Challenger disaster discovered that NASA was severely underfunded for Shuttle flight hardware, requiring them to cannabalize parts between Shuttles to keep them operating. The shuttle Enterprise (a test vehicle that never made it to space) certainly has no flight hardware to speak of as it was removed for use on actual flying orbiters.

    Why would NASA, an agency that should be using cutting-edge technologies in its missions, want old hardware for ANYTHING? (I know, I know--read the article...this is a knee-jerk post.)

    Some food for thought that's a little off-topic: shuttle Enterprise was supposed to be refit for space flight, but engineers found it would be more expensive to refit than to take a spare orbiter fuselage used for structural tests: STA-099.

    STA-099 was renamed Challenger. If it weren't for cost cutting, it would've been a nastier history, particularly to naval historians, WWII and "Star Trek" fans, to hear instead that a ship named Enterprise was destroyed on 1/28/86.

  • Sounds very familiar (Score:3, Interesting)

    by morcheeba ( 260908 ) on Saturday May 11, 2002 @02:36PM (#3503059) Journal
    Up until about 4 years ago, I used to work for a major/small satellite company. One of my last tasks was to update the processor board used in many satellites... you guessed it, it was based on the 8086. What was my upgrade? I added an 8087 to it! These math coprocessors are even rarer - we bought the last 50 bare die in existence to eventually custom-package in a special high-density radiation shielding ceramic package.

    It was about that time that I decided that the company was going in the hole. It's not that the 8086's were particularily good processors... True, they are made with a bigger geometry and suck more power -- things that make them generally more radiation resistant than anything produced in the 1990's. But, they were never designed to tolerate radiation. (NASA isn't stupid - they have high-performance radiation tolerant parts like the RAD6000 [baesystems.com]).

    Since my company wasn't making even minimal internal investments (they had a '386 based system that they built but never applied power), I decided that, for my career, I should leave. I notice now that they are hiring people with 5 years of PowerPC experience -- eventually they must have decided to get with the times, but since they didn't keep their employees current, they shot themselves in the foot and now have to hire outsiders.

    p.s. I'm back on the job market - anyone need a kick-ass PowerPC engineer? :)

  • Chip Testing (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kninja ( 121603 ) on Saturday May 11, 2002 @02:37PM (#3503067)
    The reason that they are using such old chips, is probably due to stability. These old chips probably do not produce much heat, and therefore are less likely to fail. I remember something about a satellite getting upgraded to a 486, because the 486 had passed the x years radiation test. The pentium had not, due to not being around long enough.

    In this article. I think it is just probably cheaper to find the replacement parts than to redesign the system again, it was probably designed well, robust and stable, unlike most modern systems. The engineers trust it, and perhaps are working on something to replace it eventually, but anything new would need a lot of testing, probably about 10 years. Maybe they'll upgrade to a 386 or a 486 soon.

  • I'm no aerospace engineer, but I know that the space shuttle has been around for quite some time. It seems to me like it is about time to redesign the shuttle. I'd think that NASA would need to do this anyway if they wanted a vehicle capable of making the long journey to Mars.

    Unfortunately, I wonder if that will happen since NASA seems to be a big target for budget cuts nowadays.

    Given that, how feasable is it for a shuttle redesign to happen within the next ten years?
  • There are tons of people suggesting that NASA use current chips (Pentium, Transmeta, etc) to emulate the 8086. That's not the issue. The software would be easy to port or emulate, etc. The reason they use old chips is that they can go into space. The electromagnetic radiation as seen in space would totally fry a chip with a small fab. 8086s are large enough that their transistors aren't shorted. Sure, they could shield the computers, but that's expensive and largely unnecessary for the applications they're using them for.
    • Again, wrong. Read the article and it will say:
      Troves of old parts that NASA uncovers and buys, officials said, are used not in the shuttles themselves but in flotillas of servicing and support gear.


      These chips are not going to be used in the shuttle themselves. But instead, they will be used on ground based testing equipments. So, in effect, it will not be experiencing the problems of space travel. Secondly, as an astronaut, would you be confident in a used chip in a mission critical application?

      And I still stand by my argument that it can be done using a pentium chip emulating the 8086 (the emulation is already a part of the Intel design, it's just a matter of setting a bit). The only thing that I can see is that it's probably cheaper to do it this way. If they envision that the shuttle will be phased out in a few years, why not use a temporary patch, rather than redesign the testing hardware.

      Again, this goes to show the problem that nasa encounters just because it's being inundated with money and they aren't functioning like a private corporation.
    • Well, if the DoD QA process is anything like the NASA QA process, I can guarentee that these processors wouldn't be certified for live-space use unless they were obtained from a reputable manufactorer.

      On the other hand, only one piece of hardware gets sent into space, but I'm sure they go through a ton of prototypes and test units. For these units, it makes a lot of sense to use second-hand or bulk components from regular distributors.

      Makes a lot of sense actually.
  • Might as well pick that up, too.
  • What does this say about NASA, an organization that has been synonymous with advanced technology. What does it mean when they are so intrenched in their current ways that they have to go searching for obsolete technology just to keep functioning?

    To me, it says that the US has no real intrest in advancing their space technology. What exists currently is good enough because it functions.

    NASA is in such sad shape right now that they are not even innovating in their attempts to solve this problem. On this board, I have read stories of people getting an old Apple to read modern flash cards. I have read about people turning a Commodore 64 into a web server. Rather then come up with a workable and clever hack to fix their problem, they are scrounging for old parts. It may be harder to come up with a workable hack, but at least once it is in place, duplicating it would not be a problem. Sooner or later, those old 8086 chips will run out.

    END COMMUNICATION
  • I'm currently updating some software for a NASA computer system that was designed and built in the late 1970s. The computer is a custom design built out of wire-wrapped 7400 series TTL chips and 2102 memory chips. These were mass-market chips when the system was designed. They have become increasingly difficult to find as the years go by. The computer originally used a DEC LSI-11 with RX01 8" floppy disk drives as its console and program loading device. Floppy disk drives wear out and it became impossible to find replacement parts for them.

    The computer can't be easily replaced with a modern system. There is a large library of applications, in assembly language, that would have to be rewritten. It isn't a general purpose computer. Its architecture was carefully designed and optimized for a narrow task, and it does that task better than any modern general purpose computer. Duplicating its functionality with modern technology would cost a huge amount of money.

  • I still have (and see) quite a bit of old stuff from thrift store runs. Even when getting some old XT/AT boards recycled, I made a point of popping all the socketed chips. Plus, I also made a point of stocking up on a lot of assorted EPROMs. I don't quite have the free time right now, but when I start selling stuff on ebay in a few months, I'll make a point of checking what all those various chips are going for.

    When I get to my old age, digital antiques should be quite an interesting hobby. I just didn't expect it to be worthwhile quite so soon.

  • What did an 8086 cost in 1976? $1,000? $500? Even with the hassle and expense of tracking them down, and cannibalizing, is it possible they might be paying less now than they did then?

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