Starlink from 1984

tristanj wrote: post #3

I'm guessing it's called StarLink because the design uses a Star network topology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_network

The star-topology read is a fun guess, but the real bottleneck in any 1984-era version would've been the ground stations, not the mesh. Feels more like a nod to that era's centralized comms than a literal network diagram.

Re: Starlink from 1984

#6

Post by Krishnaswaroop » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 7:11 AM UTC

This is a great reminder that many of today's "breakthroughs" were imagined decades ago. What's changed isn't just the technology, but the economics and engineering needed to make it practical

Re: Starlink from 1984

#7

Post by natch » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 8:04 AM UTC

In the “the name got reused” section the article missed the Subaru usage of it.

Re: Starlink from 1984

#8

Post by healthworker » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 8:09 AM UTC

Along these lines, it would be neat to use Raspberry Pi or something to make a "terminal to HDMI adapter", allowing me to have an unlimited number (tens or even hundreds) of external monitors for my laptop, each running a separate terminal-mode program such as a text editor, htop, Bloomberg, etc.

I often find fully working LCD monitors discarded by people who have no use for them, and could easily collect five or more of them that way if I had a convenient way to "wire them up" to my laptop.

Re: Starlink from 1984

#9

Post by healthworker » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 8:13 AM UTC

Krishnaswaroop wrote: post #6

This is a great reminder that many of today's "breakthroughs" were imagined decades ago. What's changed isn't just the technology, but the economics and engineering needed to make it practical

You didn't read the article. This has nothing to do with satellite-delivered Internet.

Re: Starlink from 1984

#10

Post by xioxox » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 8:49 AM UTC

Starlink was also a UK astronomy software project from the 80s and 90s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_Project