Punched card readers

From: Eric Chomko <chomko_at_greenbelt.com>
Date: Fri Jun 22 20:12:15 2001

Jeff Hellige wrote:

> >Straying a bit off topic, can someone explain why the Navy, a branch of
> >the US military, requiring rock solid, uncompromising stability in the
> >systems that control their vessels, in their infinite procedural and
> >compliance wisdom, would choose Windows NT to control battleships?
> >Or was that just a sick joke? I know it wasn't, but I'd like to believe
> >it was ;)
>
> If you're referring to battleships specifically, such as the
> 4 Iowa class, they've all been gone since about '94. I doubt NT had
> much, if anything, to do with whatever micros they had onboard. Even
> Enterprise didn't get the bulk of it's NT workstations/LAN until well
> into '97. If you're referring to warships in general, yes it's sad
> but true that NT appears in a few places that truly should have more
> stability and security than that. LIke many other large networks,
> the Navy's has been going towards a 'one size fits all' mentality.

I dunno, I suspect they got caught up in all the COTS (Commercial
Off The Shelf) stuff. The problem there is that you end paying a
bunch of programmers, managers, middle-managers and still others
to evaluate COTS code and pay them
the same as you would to develop it themselves. Surely, no one
should try and reinvent the buisness PC. But, battleship control, like
remote sensing satellite control is proto-typical in nature. At least to
the level where a specific product has a limited narrow application
compared to said PC.

>
> Of course, we all know that type of thinking never works out.
>

I could not have said it better myself. :)

Eric

>
> Jeff
> --
> Collector of Classic Microcomputers and Video Game Systems:
> Home of the TRS-80 Model 2000 FAQ File
> http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/lakes/6757
Received on Fri Jun 22 2001 - 20:12:15 BST

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