Data from Columbia 2/1/03 massacre survived... Sounds like anothergovmint covup to me!

Jorge R. Frank wrote:
Brian Thorn wrote:
On Sat, 10 May 2008 11:32:03 -0500, "Jorge R. Frank"
wrote:

James Of Tucson wrote:
At one time, the GPCs were based on a Motorola 68000, but a special
one that was designed for the space program.
That one ran OS-9. It was actually the second generation GPC, in
84.
No. The GPCs have always been from the IBM AP-101 family. They
started out as AP-101B and were upgraded to AP-101S starting in 1991.
The S has more memory and has the IOP integrated into the CPU, while
the B had separate CPUs and IOPs.

IIRC, 68000s did turn up in the updated Main Engine Controllers circa
1990. I had an Amiga at the time and was impressed that some part of
the Shuttle was also now using the 68000.

Hmm, right you are. Jenkins says the Block II MECs were certified in
1991 (p. 416) but does not mention that it used a 68000. That bit of
info is in /Computers in Spaceflight: The NASA Experience/, however.

It is also probably worth pointing out that there are other "computers"
on the shuttle that are more powerful than the GPCs. The MEDS IDPs are
Intel 386-based, and the MEDS MDUs have RISC processors, for example.