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Rover brains?



 
 
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  #1  
Old January 22nd 04, 10:03 PM
hrtbreak
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Default Rover brains?

JPL has some limited information about the Mars rover electronics and the
VME bus:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/missi...er_brains.html

What kind of CPU and O/S are the rovers using (or do I really want to know)?

JJ Robinson II
Houston, TX
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  #2  
Old January 23rd 04, 03:52 AM
David Higgins
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Default Rover brains?



hrtbreak wrote:

What kind of CPU and O/S are the rovers using (or do I really want to know)?


The chip itself is a RAD6000, a hardened variant of the
Power-PC architectu
http://mars.tv/mer/spacecraft.html

VME bus based processor card built by BAE, O/S is VxWorks:
http://www.washingtontechnology.com/...e/21333-1.html

And now that I've googled around a little, there's even a
HowStuffWorks page with a surprising amount of information:
http://howstuffworks.lycoszone.com/mars-rover4.htm
  #3  
Old January 23rd 04, 12:15 PM
Nils O. Selåsdal
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Default Rover brains?

In article , hrtbreak wrote:
JPL has some limited information about the Mars rover electronics and the
VME bus:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/missi...er_brains.html

What kind of CPU and O/S are the rovers using (or do I really want to know)?

They run vxWorks,on a 32 bit RAD6000 CPU iirc(Not an ordinary cpu..)

http://www.windriver.com/marsrover/

--
Vennlig hilsen/Best Regards
Nils Olav Selåsdal NOS at Utel.no
System Engineer
UtelSystems a/s
  #4  
Old January 23rd 04, 11:05 PM
Archibald
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Default Rover brains?

Uhh...i heard something about extensive use of JAVA. I just hope it
wasn't in rover itself. It's nice for rebootable web-based systems but i
can't stand the tought of bloated, buggy code running inside the poor rover.

Somehow, I'm afraid rover "bluescreened" after bloatware choked on
something that was impossible to account for. Let's hope they can
"reboot" the thing from EPROM and start again...


hrtbreak wrote:
JPL has some limited information about the Mars rover electronics and the
VME bus:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/missi...er_brains.html

What kind of CPU and O/S are the rovers using (or do I really want to know)?

JJ Robinson II
Houston, TX
****************
* JOKE *
****************
* SERIOUS *
****************
* SARCASTIC *
****************
* OTHER? *
****************


  #5  
Old January 24th 04, 11:13 AM
harshit
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Default Rover brains?

Unfortunately the info posted really is targeted towards high school kids
and the language used is not up to the mark. Why are such frilly words like
"brain" used to describe the electronics.
I too wish they had more details in straight forward eningeering language.

"hrtbreak" wrote in message
m...
JPL has some limited information about the Mars rover electronics and the
VME bus:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/missi...er_brains.html

What kind of CPU and O/S are the rovers using (or do I really want to

know)?

JJ Robinson II
Houston, TX
****************
* JOKE *
****************
* SERIOUS *
****************
* SARCASTIC *
****************
* OTHER? *
****************




  #6  
Old January 25th 04, 12:34 AM
Jorge R. Frank
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Default Rover brains?

"hrtbreak" wrote in
m:

JPL has some limited information about the Mars rover electronics and
the VME bus:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/missi...er_brains.html

What kind of CPU and O/S are the rovers using (or do I really want to
know)?


http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ny-
hstech233638933jan23,0,3818247.story?coll=ny-health-headlines

"It uses a 20-megahertz PowerPC processor, the same chip family that is
used in Apple's Macintosh, about 1/100 as fast as a contemporary PC. It has
128 MB of RAM, according to the Wind River Web site, the company that makes
the VxWorks operating system the computer uses."

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  #7  
Old January 25th 04, 10:33 AM
hrtbreak
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Default Rover brains?


"hrtbreak" wrote in message
m...
JPL has some limited information about the Mars rover electronics and the
VME bus:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/missi...er_brains.html

What kind of CPU and O/S are the rovers using (or do I really want to

know)?

JJ Robinson II
Houston, TX
****************
* JOKE *
****************
* SERIOUS *
****************
* SARCASTIC *
****************
* OTHER? *
****************



Eeeek! It's a MAC!!!

  #8  
Old January 25th 04, 07:00 PM
Jorge R. Frank
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Default Rover brains?

"Jorge R. Frank" wrote in
:

"hrtbreak" wrote in
m:

JPL has some limited information about the Mars rover electronics and
the VME bus:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/missi...er_brains.html

What kind of CPU and O/S are the rovers using (or do I really want to
know)?


http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ny-
hstech233638933jan23,0,3818247.story?coll=ny-health-headlines

"It uses a 20-megahertz PowerPC processor, the same chip family that
is used in Apple's Macintosh, about 1/100 as fast as a contemporary
PC. It has 128 MB of RAM, according to the Wind River Web site, the
company that makes the VxWorks operating system the computer uses."


Disregard this answer; I've been told on Deep Background that Newsday got
it wrong, and the RAD6000 answer provided by others is correct.

--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.
  #9  
Old January 26th 04, 01:46 AM
Greg
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Default Rover brains?

Archibald wrote in message ...
Uhh...i heard something about extensive use of JAVA. I just hope it
wasn't in rover itself. It's nice for rebootable web-based systems but i
can't stand the tought of bloated, buggy code running inside the poor rover.



Bad code is a very strong function of the programmers and only a weak
function of language. C/C++/Ada/Java can all end up as bloated buggy
code. I have worked on code where Assembly would have been just as
easy to read if written properly in the first place.

IMHO it's the code review process as well as the coding environment
that can make all the difference. ie managers that have the attitude
of "just get it done on time on matter what" are generally managers to
avoid.


Greg
  #10  
Old January 26th 04, 01:49 AM
hrtbreak
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Default Rover brains?


Eeeek! It's a MAC!!!


Oh----never mind.

 




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