It's been a hell of a week!, er WEEKS, MONTHS! VERY OT

From: Teo Zenios <teoz_at_neo.rr.com>
Date: Fri Feb 4 01:41:35 2005

----- Original Message -----
From: "9000 VAX" <vax9000_at_gmail.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Friday, February 04, 2005 1:53 AM
Subject: Re: It's been a hell of a week!, er WEEKS, MONTHS! VERY OT


> I believe with a GPS unit, any microcontroller (even 6502) is powerful
> enough to guild a model plane to the target within the plane's range.
> You don't need the power of ps2 at all. Now what you need is only a
> payload. You can mount the model plan on top of your car, and release
> it while you are driving on the interstate... I didn't start such a
> project because I worried that FBI or CIA might come to knock my door.
>
> vax, 9000
>

Depends on what your doing. I mentioned a PS2 because it was on the list of
things you could not export to Iraq, and probably had enough computing power
to control a missile, read a digicam in front of it, compare the image to a
snapshot taken of the target beforehand, and guiding it to the spot needed
(a specific window perhaps on a building). A 486 had enough power to find
patterns in pictures (in my case a handheld scanner doing multiple 4" swipes
of a picture) and stitch them together in a way to make a whole picture in
a short amount of time in windows 3.1. If you ever watched the history
channel they showed the mechanism the original cruise missile used to do
what I just described (or at least they had episodes on the subject in the
past). The GPS controlled bombs used in Iraq would probably need a simple
chip as you described to read its current position from satellite and adjust
a few fins to keep on course until it hit something hard enough to detonate.
The most expensive part would be the jamproof GPS decoder. Somebody in
Australia got in trouble for making a GPS guided missile from common easy to
buy electronics parts in the last year or two.
Received on Fri Feb 04 2005 - 01:41:35 GMT