Bidding Against NASA

From: Douglas H. Quebbeman <dquebbeman_at_acm.org>
Date: Mon May 13 12:37:46 2002

> My guess is that the reporter failed to grasp that they are probably
> looking for milspec parts, as opposed to the common stuff found in PCs and
> whatnot. These of course would be far harder to find in quantity.
>
> I don't doubt that they are also looking for regular parts for test
> systems as well. I know they are using a lot of older systems. Last year
> I did a data recovery job for them where the data was 8080 assembly code.

God knows, reporters are idiots about everything except journalism,
and who cares except another journalist. But this reporter made a
point of stating that the stuff most people have in their basements
doesn't qualify as NASA-sought-after...

Yes, agencies like this may once upon a time have relied upon
milspec parts, JUST AS THEY USED TO RELY ON SECOND-SOURCING,
which we all know died some time ago.

Where else ya gonna get a Pentium? P-II, P-III, or P-IV?

But clearly, as they buy only in bulk from "qualified"
suppliers, no one on the list other than Sellam might
have what they want in bulk.

However, this could still put pressure on the supplies of
stuff that we like to collect. Think about the effect as
it propagates upstream...

-dq
Received on Mon May 13 2002 - 12:37:46 BST