Personally, and I'm sure others will make the same point, when Intel had the 'penitum math debacle', I would strongly doubt that NASA had any of the problem processors in their hands. The problem was discovered long before NASA would have accepted delivery of any of these processors, given that their testing period is, very likely, many months if not years.
Well, yer the expert, all the way from Canada, eh?
Budgetary approval can take up to two years for US government agencies. But that's not actual specific (commercial) equipment approval. Bid/no-bid doesn't make a diff; there's room left in the equipment choice, intentionally because technology moves on. IOW, once you've got funds approved, you pick the latest and greatest then buy PDQ. And once delivered, commercial hardware gets put into production quickly...
The comment about NASA losing satellites because of an Intel 'debacle' is probably urban or suburban myth.
[etc]
Believe what you wish. Guess you could do something silly, like researching it.
Let's not lose sight of reality here. As recently as last year, NASA was trolling cctech for parts for their onboard computer systems which were very extinct long before the Pentium was born. In a discussion of Mac versus Intel/x86/msoft hyperbole has no place.
Yes, they were looking for parts for some old legacy systems... In fact, several of the Shuttle systems have never been updated from their original 1970s/1980s implementation. They're on the list to be updated, but they keep getting bumped by more important things. Would you rather they junqued multimillion dollar subsystems every year or two and bought all new? Would you rather they had replacement parts freshly manufactured one-off, instead of googling? *smirk*
From this you infer that NASA as no modern equipment? Or that any equipment they have do must be YEARS behind the commercial edge? Think again.
On example: Currently NASA has four large PowerMac G5 grids in production use. Gotta love that grid software from Virginia Tech! The PM G5 was announced by Apple in ?late June? 2003. By Sept, V.Tech's grid (they developed the software) was built. NASA's 1st was available for use January 2004. Those would be the G5s that you believe NASA could not possibly have planned, procured, installed, tested, and put into production use yet.
Anyway... Back to Mac perceptions... My housemate just slapped her hubby's hand. He reached for her new PB G4. That man just has to learn to keep his hands on his own Dell.
Enough of this thread. Time for it to die.
"DOS Computers manufactured by companies such as IBM, Compaq, Tandy, and millions of others are by far the most popular, with about 70 million machines in use worldwide. Macintosh fans, on the other hand, may note that cockroaches are far more numerous than humans, and that numbers alone do not denote a higher life form." -New York Times, 26 November 1991
I think, therefore I use a Mac.
I'm going to bed now.
Apologies to the List Nanny(s).
- Dan.
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