3 Feb
2003
3 Feb
'03
6:02 p.m.
I think they are on-topic. We've got four Ibm
360's onboard.
No, they have five AP-101S General Purpose Computers on board. The
AP-101S and the earlier AP-101B are derived from the computer used in
the F-15 fighter. The architecture actually quite a bit different
from that of the System/360, though there are
similarities. The
System/360 had sixteen 32-bit general registers, while the AP-101
has
two separate sets of eight registers. The System/360 could address
sixteen megabytes, but the AP-101 can only address one megabyte, and
it is awkward to address more than 256 Kbytes.
But the AP-101B is over ten years old, and I think *some* of the AP-101S
computers are, so they're on-topic.
Space Shuttle issues other than the computers are off-topic.
Does anyone have the manuals for HAL/S, the language used for the AP-101
software? There's some info on it at:
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/computers/Appendix-II.html