Why Not Use PC To Make Glass Cockpit?

"'Vejita' S. Cousin" wrote in message
...
In article , wrote:
Are you ready to bet your life on Windows XP and some $200 disk drives
made
in China and designed to operate in an office?

Not the original poster, but actually yes I am A good stable system
that you do not touch/play with should work/last without problems. And I
don't need to run winXP I could run linux (in fact given the costs and
licenses I would) which is rock solid stable.

I agree I would put my trust on to a solid state flash drive running Linux
kernel, They can write a Linux kernel (OS) to fit on a small flash drive or
integrated chip witch means no moving parts just a silicon chip witch all
GPS units built today use IE Garmin 430, 530 ect and people put their lives
in its hands and its a proprietary unknown OS to may have unknown bugs.

The IBM 760 laptops are used on the space station in three classes of
service: PCS, SSC and Payload Laptop.

There does seem to be a scarcity of information on the net about the PCS
function. This is all I could find.
http://www.hal-pc.org/~slcweb2/0Mont...Nasa/Space.rtf

When the IBM 760 is loaded with PCS software it can perform the command and
control interface to the Station itself. When the laptops are loaded with
SSC software and are connected to a ten base 2 coax network called the Ops
LAN they can perform typical office automation functions like email and
displaying procedure text files. They even have IP phone software on the
SSCs so the crew can make standard telephone calls from space as of they
were an extension on the Johnson Space Center phone system.

http://www.techbriefs.com/spinoff/sp...1/johnson.html

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk65...study09186a008
00b53b6.shtml



Gig Giacona wrote in message ...

I looked at several of the links.. I didn't see anywhere that said it was
using those thinkpads for manuvering.

"Ted" wrote in message

The Space Station uses IBM 760xd laptops for their glass cockpit.



http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/...l/sts105-304-0
25.html



http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/.../iss002e5478.h
tml



http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/.../iss003e5552.h
tml

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=213



http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk65...study09186a008
00b53b6.shtml

See DO-178B for the software side of things and DO-160 for the hardware
environmental side of things... It's not just a matter of throwing together
a bunch of PC hardware and hacking together some software.


On 2005-06-18 03:03:00 -0600, "Le Chaud Lapin"
said:

Standard disclaimer applies: I still have my copy of Flight Training
next to the porcelain throne. Ahem.

However, as I flip the pages of this magazine, I cannot help but think
that companies like Garmin are getting off a bit easy.

Being a software developer, I am very suprised to discover that not
every aicraft costing over $30,000 has a full-featured glass cockpit.
Unless I am missing somethnig, it appears that everything that a pilot
needs can be made with very very cheap hardware.

A PC can be had for under $500 easily, the mother board for even less.
There are software programmable radios that can be made for under $100
that can tune into any frequency under 1GHz (in other words, if it's
there and not encrypted, you can get it). There are USB sensors of all
sorts (altitude, humidity, wind speed, etc.) And good software
engineers can write pretty much any piece of software that is required
so long as they receive guidance about what is supposed to do what,
with pictures of twirly things to on the display to keep the pilot from
getting bored.

So I am wondering, why isn't anyone doing this on a grander scale. Are
they?
-Chaud Lapin-