The Last POWER1 CPU on Mars Is Dead
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The Last POWER1 CPU on Mars Is Dead
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Re: The Last POWER1 CPU on Mars Is Dead
#2So, in other words, the machine's still alive, but has no backup CPU?
Re: The Last POWER1 CPU on Mars Is Dead
#3There are still Power chips (based on PowerPC 750) on Curiosity; it's just POWER1 that's dead:
> That's not the end of Power ISA chips on Mars, though: Curiosity, which is running a pair of RAD750s (one main and one backup, plus two SPARC accessory CPUs), is still in operation at 2,319 Mars solar days and ticking.
Re: The Last POWER1 CPU on Mars Is Dead
#4There are still Power chips (based on PowerPC 750) on Curiosity; it's just POWER1 that's dead: > That's not the end of Power ISA chips on Mars, though: Curiosity, which is running a pair of RAD750s (one main and one backup, plus two SPARC accessory CPUs), is still in operation at 2,319 Mars solar days and ticking.
> it's just POWER1 that's dead
Is it certain that the chip is not still getting some power and running something?
Re: The Last POWER1 CPU on Mars Is Dead
#5Might be O/T, but I found it really interesting how they mention "5,352 Martian solar days". Do we humans have plans in the pipeline for a universal time standard we can use wherever we are? Something that is a little more useful than "seconds since UNIX epoch" but something a little less terrestrial than UTC? Or is time going to be based wherever we land or travel (e.g. divide up Mars into time zones upon colonization)? If we don't have a formal ISO solution, it might be a good idea to start pinning one down; might be relevant by the time the standard is finalized.
Re: The Last POWER1 CPU on Mars Is Dead
#6So, in other words, the machine's still alive, but has no backup CPU?
The linked AP article does not indicate that a failure of the CPU is the issue here (it does not indicate much beyond this vague sentence: "its internal clock possibly so scrambled that it no longer knew when to sleep or wake up to receive commands"). What do you mean with "alive", that it still has power?
Re: The Last POWER1 CPU on Mars Is Dead
#7Might be O/T, but I found it really interesting how they mention "5,352 Martian solar days". Do we humans have plans in the pipeline for a universal time standard we can use wherever we are? Something that is a little more useful than "seconds since UNIX epoch" but something a little less terrestrial than UTC? Or is time going to be based wherever we land or travel (e.g. divide up Mars into time zones upon colonizati…
Agreed, I’d like it to be called “star date” like Star Trek but with fewer numbers involved.
Re: The Last POWER1 CPU on Mars Is Dead
#8Might be O/T, but I found it really interesting how they mention "5,352 Martian solar days". Do we humans have plans in the pipeline for a universal time standard we can use wherever we are? Something that is a little more useful than "seconds since UNIX epoch" but something a little less terrestrial than UTC? Or is time going to be based wherever we land or travel (e.g. divide up Mars into time zones upon colonizati…
I don't really see the problem with standardizing on 'seconds since the epoch' for any interplanetary communication and having clients convert to something more meaningful to humans. Any other "universal" time format will be just as meaningless when days and seasons are all different lengths.
Re: The Last POWER1 CPU on Mars Is Dead
#9Might be O/T, but I found it really interesting how they mention "5,352 Martian solar days". Do we humans have plans in the pipeline for a universal time standard we can use wherever we are? Something that is a little more useful than "seconds since UNIX epoch" but something a little less terrestrial than UTC? Or is time going to be based wherever we land or travel (e.g. divide up Mars into time zones upon colonizati…
> Do we humans have plans in the pipeline for a universal time standard we can use wherever we are?
This fundamentally cannot exist. Any "universal" system would drift for observers on different planets. Having different times in New York and New Delhi isn't the worst right now; doing a calendar look-up for the time on Mars isn't as neat. But given we won't have real-time communication, it isn't as big of a problem either.
Re: The Last POWER1 CPU on Mars Is Dead
#10Might be O/T, but I found it really interesting how they mention "5,352 Martian solar days". Do we humans have plans in the pipeline for a universal time standard we can use wherever we are? Something that is a little more useful than "seconds since UNIX epoch" but something a little less terrestrial than UTC? Or is time going to be based wherever we land or travel (e.g. divide up Mars into time zones upon colonizati…
How would such a standard handle time dilation?