I seem to remember that are additional computers and a whole group of engineers and scientists on the ground to support the smaller AGS in flight. Kind of like cloud computing.
Apollo 11 Guidance Computer vs. USB-C Chargers
131–140 of 210 posts
Re: Apollo 11 Guidance Computer vs. USB-C Chargers
#132I'd like to also see an article examining these computing power attributes on the piece of garbage embedded computer on the front of the gas pumps where the lag between registering every keypress is like 800ms, and every screen redraw takes about 2000ms. It takes me an extra 60 seconds to get gas now thanks to how slow these things are, and it is nearly universal despite whether they appear to be 20 year old or new d…
It's exceptionally slow on some days and quite variable. That makes me think it's "phoning home" using the GPRS gateway for every keypress, almost as if the menu items need to be generated dynamically.
Re: Apollo 11 Guidance Computer vs. USB-C Chargers
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
Though, where there's a will there's a way... https://doom.fandom.com/wiki/16-bit >After the release of Doom II on the PC, the original three episodes were released to some 16-bit consoles that used special 32-bit enhancement hardware. For the Sega Genesis, the 32X allowed for additional address space to enable Doom to run its demanding resources of the time which a 16-bit system wouldn't have handled. Whereas with t…
Question was could it do it which it can’t. But yeah you could use the Apollo for controller IO and put the rest on a raspberry pi but that kinda defeats the purpose.
But the data width is the least of concerns anyway. You should realize a 15 bit computer can compute everything a 32 bit can?
The bigger problems are more pedestrian like complete lack of suitable IO.
Re: Apollo 11 Guidance Computer vs. USB-C Chargers
#134I'd like to also see an article examining these computing power attributes on the piece of garbage embedded computer on the front of the gas pumps where the lag between registering every keypress is like 800ms, and every screen redraw takes about 2000ms. It takes me an extra 60 seconds to get gas now thanks to how slow these things are, and it is nearly universal despite whether they appear to be 20 year old or new d…
You forgot: Would you like a receipt? (wait)
It makes no sense at all. As soon as you input payment it should output gas. There's really no need for buttons or a screen at all (well, maybe except for entering a zip). If they really have to show all that stuff, it can come after I have my gas.
Note: languages aren't slow, it's the programs that are slow.
Re: Apollo 11 Guidance Computer vs. USB-C Chargers
#135And that's nothing. Wait for AI in power sockets! For now, they only have simple processors in USB-C charger, but soon there will be more intelligence in there, than you can imagine! :-)
A brain the size of the universe and it's there, negotiating voltages with some savage hardware! I sure hope it likes a 10kV surge!
Re: Apollo 11 Guidance Computer vs. USB-C Chargers
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't believe that's a good portrayal of the situation. I doubt that there's anything all that special about the actual Saturn V engines. Sure, maybe nobody remembers all of the engineering details about those particular engines, and it would be hard to reverse engineer them. But I'm pretty sure we would find it much easier to design and build new engines of similar spec today. SpaceX, Blue Origin, and several othe…
The F1 engine is interesting from this PoV because the thing as it is documented does not work (and even the documented design is full of weird design decisions that nobody today knows the reason for) and it worked by combination of luck and institutional knowledge of the actual machinists who built it not exactly to specifications. In fact if you take various “high tech” designs from middle of the 20th century you w…
This reminds me of the story about using genetic programming to design hardware, where it would reliably generate designs that worked... somehow. Complete with apparently nonfunctional parts that couldn't be pruned without breaking it.
Re: Apollo 11 Guidance Computer vs. USB-C Chargers
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are architectures that are just fundamentally C-hostile. Perhaps the most famous one is 6502. No efficient way to implement stack based parameter passing, generic pointer arithmetic, and lots of other bits and pieces. You can still use C on 6502, it's just not very fast. I guess you could define another language that mostly looks like C, but built around particular CPU architecture quirks.
I wonder if you can write fast C for the 6502, though, but you'll have to constrain your use of the language considerably?
The 6502 is a very constrained CPU. It only has 6 registers, only one of which (PC) is 16 bits. The stack is fixed at addresses 0x0100 to 0x01FF, and the two index registers are 8-bits in size. So is the accumulator and the stack register (hence the fixed address for the system stack) and no stack-based addressing modes. You'll have a severe penalty in doing any 16-bit arithmetic. There is no general multiply or divide instructions. I think the architecture is about as hostile to C as you can get and still be popular.
Re: Apollo 11 Guidance Computer vs. USB-C Chargers
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
Given your comment is the top comment, could you clarify if there was any point behind your seemingly irrelevant anecdote other than performing a drive-by dump on Google? Edit: it looks like the user was writing in good faith. I am sorry for over-reacting.
Doesn’t seem like a disparagement, Google comes off as more efficient than expected.
To me, building a charger with a CPU that couldn't make it to the moon is a sign of old-fashioned quality.
Re: Apollo 11 Guidance Computer vs. USB-C Chargers
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think about this every time I used one of these machines... isn't it in the businesses best interest to get people through as fast as possible? I have the same experience at grocery stores and convenience stores, I'm always amazed at how slow the machines are with such seemingly simple tasks.
The machines on brand new gas stations and self-checkouts are much faster [also support mobile payment], but performing upgrades to older systems usually isn't worth the cost since they're only at max. throughput for a few hours every week, if that.
The new ones play video ads and (some at least) have audio that you can't disable too (spotted in New Mexico). Truly baffling!
Hopefully not all of the machines are that bad. I wish that common point-of-sale interfaces focused on simplicity and ease of use (especially accessibility). Maybe one day!
Re: Apollo 11 Guidance Computer vs. USB-C Chargers
#140This is brilliant and hilarious, but, as a person that cares about this I honestly have no idea what to do. Fighting software waste feels like getting in a fistfight with the ocean or something. I could write everything in C or assembly, I don't even think that notion is crazy , but my client's want javascript. Not that it's even javascripts fault, or any particular languages fault, I just don't know how you convince…
Nah. I feel a lot like you, and can't wait for the day optimizations matter again. But realistically, fat chance. It's easier and cheaper to hire 50 code monkeys to throw crap at the wall and make something surprisingly functional than it is to hire a few who know how to wrangle bits NES style. And even as processors max out, it's still cheaper to just throw more CPUs at the problem. There will always be niche markets that demand real understanding and skills, but the general 'coder' market is lost for good.