[inforoots] Re: Spacecraft Pioneer and it's data on old media problem

[Rafael Skodlar]

Carl Baltrunas wrote:
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> On Sep 30, 2007, at 3:21 PM, Jason Scott wrote:
>> On Sun, 30 Sep 2007, w1pf wrote:
>>
>>> First off, there is nowhere NEAR enough information in that letter 
>>> (or, as far as I can tell, anywhere else on the site) to attract 
>>> those of us who have the technical zotz to really help out.
>>
>> I'm coming from way out field here, but I read this more as a "please 
>> people, we're doing good work over here saving history, so we just 
>> need donations to help us continue the work we're doing." It seems 
>> more about getting people to understand the history at stake and 
>> donate, not about seeking actual technical help.
>
> It could be... I'd have to agree with that.
>

Well, everybody is looking for $ sources. Are we (CHM) any different? 
The fact remains that we, at least some people on this list, have 
expertize and means in some cases to help in such a project.

My intension was not to ask for people to send $ to that organization 
but to open a discussion and possibly give some interested people a lead 
to untapped (?) source of working hardware in the future.

> I'm not a rocket scientist, but just from my contacts at the CHM and a 
> few former jobs, I know enough people who could do the entire job, 
> including the data analysis.  I'm sure the good people at JPL and NASA 
> are not that enamored with "new" projects that they could not find the 
> technical expertise needed.
>
Well, their bureaucracies are in the way many times that's why it took 
them a long time to find original material from Lunar landing days I 
believe.

> And, why use old iron, when an emulator, ie. friends at SIMH or (if it 
> is a DEC-10) KLH-10, can run circles around the old iron without the 
> need for massive parallel processors.
>
It's obvious to me that OS emulation is not a big issue these days, I 
work with virtualization on a daily basis. We can easily emulate old 
systems like PDP-1 or IBM1620 etc. However, it's watching or working 
with real things that's fun. Crunching usable data at the same time 
would be even more fun, not to mention the possibility for publicity 
that could be gained from it IMO. If they end up with hardware being 
thrown out then it would be worthwhile for somebody else to run with it. 
Why not CHM?

> A terrible side note: Does anyone have a Cray or Connections machine 
> emulator that runs faster than the originals?
>
Which Cray? I don't have any for either one. Latest Crays run some 
version of Unix, Unicos I believe, so it's most likely easier to deal 
with than other architectures. Many programs were written in "common 
languages" so porting should not be a big problem.

I found the following interesting read: 
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/computer/system/cray/faq/

> -Carl

-- 
Rafael