William Atkins
Thursday, 16 October 2008 21:12
Science -
Space
Page 1 of 3
For you people still using 486 personal computers, be assured that NASA still uses them, too. They just got the Hubble Space Telescope up and running again by switching to a backup 486 computer that has been idle since 1990. Yes, even old technology is good!
For those of you unfamiliar with the 486 PC, it was a generation of personal computers driven by the Intel 486 chip (also known as the i486, 80486, and usually just the 486). It was introduced in 1989 with over one million transistors, the first chip to have so many.
It replaced the 386 computer (Intel 80386). The next generation of computers was the Pentiums, and the x86 designation was dropped.
According to the “
Hubble Status Report #1 ” from NASA (on Wednesday, October 15, 2008),
“The Hubble Space Telescope team completed switching the required hardware modules to their B-sides about 9:30 a.m. this morning [Wednesday]
and received telemetry [transmission of data]
that verified they had good data. Everything at this point looks good.”
Good old 486!
NASA engineers reloaded data into the backup 486 computer (on the Hubble) around 12:00 noon on Wednesday and then performed a data dump (returned a copy of stored data back to Earth) to verify that all of the systems were working properly.
Then, NASA states,
“At 1:10 p.m. this afternoon the team brought Hubble out of safe mode and placed the 486 computer back in control. Late this afternoon, Gyro #4 (which was needed for safe mode) will be turned off.” (Gyro #4 is one of Hubble's gyroscopes--devices that keep Hubble in a steady position in its orbit about Earth.)
Yes, 486 rules!
Later on Wednesday, the process continued as the Side B of the Science Instrument Command & Data Handling (SIC&DH) computer was reconfigured and further processes were performed later to verify it was functioning correctly. More information on the Hubble procedure of switching from Side A to Side B is found at "
Hubble scientists to do the Hubble Flip."
More information on the status of Hubble and its 486 continues on page two.
