vintage computers in active use
Swift Griggs
swiftgriggs at gmail.com
Fri May 27 10:11:26 CDT 2016
On Thu, 26 May 2016, Dave Wade wrote:
> Assembler on a Series/1 is a problem as it's a closed system. Can't be
> run under emulation. No modern replacements available.
You make some excellent points about the hardware and the difficulty of
emulation et al. When it comes to firing nuclear weapons, personally I'd
like to see computers *removed* from the equation as much as is practical.
The protocols for firing should be as embedded as much as possible in
human chain of command and the Missileers, not the computers. The controls
are currently physically isolated and require simultainous key-turns by
two individuals etc.. I have much more faith in something like that than
in software or computer hardware. Anatoli Bugorski can tell you all about
the effectiveness of "safety software".
If they putting Windows boxes in missile silos, well... Prepare for WWIII.
It's a bit like the last time I was in an ER and they couldn't accept
patients because their Windows machines kept blue-screening due to a
virus. Windows in an ER? Yep. This insanity is now the norm.
-Swift
More information about the cctalk
mailing list