I'm genuinely surprised some wag (original meaning, not a stupid EFA players wife) hasn't said the now annoying phrase. "ah but can it run Vista/Crysis"

I remember reading a story (could have been on El Reg) saying that NASA was buying up scrap PC's - and I think they mentioned 386 and 486 machines - so that they would have spare parts for the computers running the Space Shuttle.

Could be an urban legend.....

Breath new life into older hardware with linux... ;)

C for safety critical flight systems ? It's a disaster waiting to happen. What next … Windows for Warships ?

If they are using pentiums, I hope they don't have to do any calculations requiring high levels of accuracy - you know, like calculating where the bomb is going to land.....

Of course it's running outdated kit - it NEEDS to be reliable!

Can you imagine it "I'll send you a patch now" "Oh bugger, you've introduced a new bug that's swapped the X and Y axis"

Let alone the concern that a modern processor located in the wings could suffer a fan failure leading to overheating, right next to the fuel tank.

I'd stick the the 486SX processors personally, with code from that era so it doesn't run like a dog (imagine running vista on a 10 year old machine compared to windows 95 on same machine)

After all the effort I've put in to my 6502-assisted Sopwith Camel, too! Damn Yankees!

Mine's the leather one with "RFC" badges...

ah but can it run Vista/Crysis?

There you go, is that better? :)

I wonder if it has occurred to NASA that shuttle's might not be such death traps if they put some decent hardware in them, as well as non-exploding foam!

It is understandable that the USAF might have to reconsider their choice of programming language and switch to more modern languages.

But C?!

C isn't exactly reknown for being a forgiving language, and it has at least 1024 ways of doing really bad things in a single line of code, really interesting choice of weapon if I might say so. Why not a safer langue like eg. Eiffel with design by contract and automatic garbage collection?

Or maybe the pilots simply like to live on the edge, and they wouldn't hear of anything that might imply the use of the word safety?

So they are de-compiling JOVIAL code and using a translator to generate the C code. Imagine the trepidation of hitting compile for the 1st time. I pity the test pilots.

Why not get someone who knows JOVIAL and write a few new procedures. Job done.

.. the mysterious people still running Windows 3.11 for workgroups?

33 MHz, 128 Mb RAM for onboard embedded systems. That's to get the probe across the solar system and through the Martian atmosphere then functioning on the surface, although I suspect the challenge of keeping a fundamentally unstable aircraft flying, invisible and fighting is a bigger one.

http://news.oreilly.com/2008/07/the-software-behind-the-mars-p.html

"It seems that the current OFP was written in a now-obsolete programming language called JOVIAL. Northrop are proud to announce that they have figured out how to translate the code into a "newer, more modern programming language called C"."

I'm with the others on this one. I like C but if they're gonna switch to another language for an airplane, it should really have been ADA.

For a good tour of the scary things you can do with C, check:

http://www.de.ioccc.org/winners.html

Actually, I've seen things close to that bad in real life, from people that didn't do it deliberately. I'm not joking.

Come on now, you didn't think the Terminator's SkyNet code would run on anything less than a Pentium, right?

But the Governator seems to need a CPU upgrade also.

I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't a myth. Here at the power station I work in we eBay'ed for old IBM PC's so we had spares for the turbine control system in the control room should the pc in the desk go pop. Japan doesn't keep spares it seems....

Similar situation in the nuke's I'm told, they replace like for like, so they're running god knows how many years old tech :)

Having worked in Defence IT at both the sharp and blunt ends, it is absolutely necessary to stay behind the curve. 256K memory, and txt-based interface? Hell yes, cos its well written and works sufficiently fast enough! Simple = reliable!

Ah - Pentiums. I can see it now:

Firing missiles in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 4, 3, 2, 1, GPF

The wings waggle quite nicely as they plumet to the ground. Looks like a concussed bat!

Mine's the one with the matching tin hat.

Thanks, was getting worried there, at least someone had the usual Linux comment, now all we need is some distant link to a PS3 or 360 to get the Fanbois on

To be fair, all the "innovation" we see as home users is a bit of a myth anyway. Apart from computer games and synthetic benchmarks, when did you last see a performance increase in an application??

I am kinda surprised they're switching to a central unit but I'm guessing where it says "we will use one circuit board to do this job" it really means "this one board will do this job, we'll also install 2 spares just in case"

Still, with all these upgrades, I wonder if they'll have the budget left over for cable tidying and those all important CCFL tubes?

well we've had Windows for Warships, I guess this is Windows for Warplanes.

Pilot: Navigator, are we anywhere near the target yet?

Nav: Sorry, chief just rebooting from a BSOD

Pilot: Have the enemy spotted us y.............

Paris, becasue she REALLY knows her way around a mission critical system

So these blokes are going to replace JOVIAL standardized in 1973 with C that had an informal standard in 1978. Both are derived from ALGOL but JOVIAL was designed for military use.

Here's a story in The Register from 1999 - without paragraph breaks - about how the Hubble space telescope was upgraded from a 386 to a 486:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/12/27/hubble_telescope_gets_intel/

I assume the 486 is still up there, and that if humanity is destroyed in a nuclear war, and aliens visit in the near future, they will assume that we were a little bit backwards and old-fashioned.

Mind you, it works, which is more than can be said of unemployed people and broken things.

The main reason for using old kit on mission critical systems is that you know what all the bugs in the hardware (and compiler) are and if they haven't been fixed, you know how to work around them.

Once you have proved your code to be correct, then you (hopefully) can guarantee that your system works as expected.

I wonder how they get the disks to keep working when they are pulling a 6g turn?

Half the disks out there will crash if some gently taps the case while the head is moving. 0.0006g

I can see the pain of the translation now:

try {

takeoff();

}

catch { //TODO }

try {

flying();

}

catch { //TODO }

/*

*** reserved for ah-64 not in this build.

try {

friendlyfire();

}

catch { //TODO }

*/

try {

landing();

}

catch { //TODO }

/*

this handles a crash if needed after SP1

try {

crash();

}

catch { //TODO - Pilots }

*/

... cause you know they will!

We shouldn't be scoffing at this sort of news. Have we not all seen Independence Day?

I read only the other day that Intel gave the IP for the pre-MMX Pentium to the US defense once they were done making them. Recently Intel have asked for it back, with improvements since the military folk have debugged it some more.

The reason they are probably using C will be due to compiler and if they are using a COTS RTOS. Ada is supported by gcc, so if there is one t's probably not *NIX. Note that M$ don't do an RTOS, and this plane would need the real time functionality.

JOVIAL = Jules' Own Version of the International Algorithmic Language

Actually devised for miitary/defense/realtime systems, iirc. Very few implementations. Then-Burroughs (now Unisys) had started writing a JOViAL compiler for their B6700 system, but it stalled at a drawer or two full of punch cards. You know, those 2' or so long drawers we used to keep our punched cards in between bouts of chasing pterodactyls down the street to have for lunch.

Saw this torso once at Burroughs HQ in Detroit.

Ah, the memories.

Hmmm , those poor old generation one subsonic stealth aircraft which are not invisible on the old style Woodpecker CB band OTH radars for some reason due to angles of incidence and reflection laws of physics must be getting very close to airframe flight expiry hours when then start to fall apart in the sky like the old Comet generation one Jet Passenger Aircraft back in the fifties !

The reality is that basically like the space shuttle , older technology used to build it is no longer available as new parts due to the march of time and the destruction of sub industry contractors and is only available at a good used electronics disposal store in always in the next suburb !

Converting one of those soon to expire airframes with fly by wire with very questionable tolerance to the latest generation EMP pulse devices will be a nightmare of epic proportions !

Still one wonders , will they keep the control column chicken switch that was installed after a number of rather dumb flying accidents that has happened in the past due to spatial distortion effect and over long pilot flying hours induced tiredness along with some equally stupid training routines thought up by non pilots flogging their brain dead theories whilst simultaneously ignoring all that was learned in a conflict in the past century ?

Choices will be very interesting indeed ?

Pilot: Ohhhhhh, Shit! (Initiates EJECT sequence)

WfW: You appear to be trying to eject Are You sure?

Pilot: Arrrrrrrgh! (clicks YES)

WfW: Are you really sure?

Pilot: FFS! (clicks YES)

WfW: This procedure will require a restart - continue?

Pilot: Oh my Go........

Yup, that's GOT to be a winner for M$

It used to be Fuzzy Logic that would solve these problems, even my washing machine came with it. Fuzzy logic in restructurable flight control systems, approach to multidimensional target tracking, in Fire Control and Bombing Systems.

Humans decide what to do, machines attempt to do it and have some fine tuning freedom. Suppose with AI as well, the computer could follow the options right to the very edge of it's experience and save the plane by some odd manouver no human could possibly react , control or envision in time.

Same with extending a burst of fire by a second, after noticing the target is tracking away or whatever they call it. Not a computer deciding to attack, just extending or prempting or shifting, basically interpreting what the ultimate aim is. Such as in Nuclear War where "it" destroys itself as the best option.

"The B-2's flight-management computer, without which its unstable low-observable flying wing airframe cannot fly"

Everyone here (including the author) seems to be under the impression that the flight management system is what flies the aircraft.

It isn't - something that should be obvious to anyone with even a little knowledge about aircraft.

The flight management system automates previously tedious tasks like plotting and managing your route, how much fuel you need etc. Presumably it is being upgraded to make the B-2 more flexible in the modern, rapidly changing, battlefield. It doesn't matter what language you use to write it, as long as it is tested and gives the required level of availability. After all you can always turn it off and use pencil and paper.

The flight control system on the other hand does not need a performance upgrade, it already works and is already qualified. Nor would they ever dream of replacing a redundant flight control system with "a single board"