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jimray

NASA successfully debugged a 46-year-old computer that has a latency of nearly two full days. That is truly awesome.

blogs.nasa.gov/voyager/2024/04

22 April at 19:31 | Open on mastodon.social
37 comments
Peter Wood

@jimray

I think you have to upgrade to the Professional Edition for natively supported remote debugging.

22 April at 19:39 | Open on mas.to
Edelruth
Rémy

@jimray I like how you didnt say where the debugged computer is. A small detail I guess 😅

22 April at 20:07 | Open on piaille.fr
fiercest lasagna on the seven seas!

@rusty @jimray

Right Ascension: 17h 16m 04.8s
Declination: 12° 20' 30.1"
24,417,733,820 km [16.9 km/s]

would you like to lock this device? y/n

23 April at 5:07 | Open on tech.lgbt
Joe

@jimray having programmed computers of that era, I got oddly tense reading the article. I imagined the process of updating calls and jumps to the new addresses. Back then updates could easily "brick" a computer. Sometimes with perfect code that somehow didn't load right.

What an amazing achievement.

22 April at 20:13 | Open on mastodon.world
Sean Boyer 🇵🇸 FREE PALESTINE

@jimray
Voyager is one of my favourite human stories, and it's a story that keeps on giving.

22 April at 20:40 | Open on fed.sbcloud.cc
zvhxxl

@jimray What do we need new computers for if the 46 year old ones still work?

22 April at 20:44 | Open on mastodon.social
Kevin Russell

@zvhxxl @jimray

Microsoft has announced the computers running last version, the present version of "Windows" are all garbage that should be thrown out, they wont provide an ounce, a litre, a milometer of support for the virus attractors.

Not suggesting, or even offering a better solution, because feelings, but Linux, like the Mars Rover. And they keep running for millions of miles, and years over years.

22 April at 21:01 | Open on mstdn.social
enoch_exe_inc

@zvhxxl @jimray Well, computers have gotten much faster, cheaper, and more efficient over the years. However, it seems that we, the programmers, have been wasting all that extra computational power on making everything look pretty rather than optimise and make every byte of memory count.

22 April at 23:53 | Open on mastodon.social
enoch_exe_inc

@zvhxxl @jimray Here’s a random interesting fact: Voyager’s onboard computers were constructed from 7400-series transistor-transistor logic circuits, which I have actually used to design my own CPU. Virtually. I designed a fully functional 16-bit CPU inside my computer using circuit design software (and later ported it to #Minecraft). That’s how much faster computers have gotten since 1977.

22 April at 23:58 | Open on mastodon.social
Aaron

@zvhxxl @jimray Because software is like a catfish: it grows until it fills all available space in it's environment.

Build a faster CPU, and the next version of the software will gleefully get bigger and slower and use up gains in speed.

23 April at 1:10 | Open on chirp.zadzmo.org
Deb4+ aka Deborah DT 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

@jimray

But science isn't real so.... Blah blah blah

/ s. great work!

22 April at 20:47 | Open on mas.to
Kindness is as kindness does
Kevin Russell

@jimray

Really good magnifying spectacles, biceps thirty miles long, forearms 3 million miles long, and those fingers!!!!

22 April at 20:52 | Open on mstdn.social
Jens Christian

@jimray @hypebot these engineers would probably make 10x the salary if they went to San Francisco...

... but they don't, and I love them for it.

22 April at 20:53 | Open on social.data.coop
Yoshimatsu ✅🇺🇸 🇺🇦

@jimray This is amazingly mind blowing. I'm sure it was a purpose built computer but I like to believe the work we did at Digital Equipment Corp (DEC) contributed to this spectacular achievement.

22 April at 20:56 | Open on toot.community
Stefan Fendt

@jimray

That makes up for a really bad round trip time... 👍

22 April at 21:30 | Open on mastodon.social
Timo

@jimray That sounds like the latency on my VPN provider 😅

22 April at 21:36 | Open on mastodon.sdf.org
Nilla Prynn (ThirdEarGames)

@jimray i knew they had brilliant engineers at NASA. i did not know they had legitimate miracle workers.

22 April at 21:50 | Open on furry.energy
MaxiPalle

@jimray This made mx day! Congrats to the NASA team.

22 April at 21:51 | Open on norden.social
Nicolas Ward

@jimray @joelhousman I'm pretty sure my team at work is tired of me posting these stories as examples of how to do ops.

22 April at 22:03 | Open on tacobelllabs.net
StarkRG

@jimray Using tab complete would be truly painful.

22 April at 22:13 | Open on myside-yourside.net
Dаn̈ıel Раršlow 🥧

@jimray
Pretty sure what really happened was the credit card on record for the Voyager SaaS subscription expired and they just entered a new one.

22 April at 22:36 | Open on qoto.org
xs4me2

@jimray

Just a matter of patience and latency…

22 April at 22:38 | Open on mastodon.social
Riddhiman Rana
4everpushingaboulder

@jimray Godspeed Voyager! #nasa #nasajpl y’all are some steely-eyed misslefolks!

22 April at 22:51 | Open on mastodon.social
HTPC NZ

@jimray ah that must be why weird nerds think move fast break things model adopted by likes of SpaceX will be far more successful in space exploration compared to this dinosaur ways...

22 April at 23:53 | Open on mastodon.social
John Quentin Heywood
Conley Edwards

@jimray imagine seeing a 44 hour ping time on speed test!!! Latency looking pretty bad on this one boss! 🤣🤣🤣🤣

23 April at 0:54 | Open on mastodon.social
Gordus Elkor

@jimray almost as difficult as walking an elderly parent through setting up a new app on their phone.

23 April at 1:19 | Open on mas.to
selje 🇺🇸 🇺🇦

@jimray
Wonder if they used Jovial for that computer or if it was done in assembly or binary? Surely not ADA! 🤔 😉 😜

23 April at 1:41 | Open on mastodon.social
Henodude
Lea
Dr. Oblivious
Paul

@jimray such an amazing team of passionate individuals.

23 April at 4:58 | Open on disabled.social
Paul

@jimray and to think they did this amid a budget crisis, losing 500 colleagues, and just general uncertainty that the thing they've worked so hard on for decades could be revived. So inspiring.

23 April at 5:02 | Open on disabled.social
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