[HN Gopher] Voyager Spacecraft and Fortran 5
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Voyager Spacecraft and Fortran 5
Author : ColinWright
Score : 67 points
Date : 2024-06-16 10:09 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.geonius.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.geonius.com)
| j_m_b wrote:
| Up until the 80s and early 90s, small consoles were programmed in
| assembly code due to performance optimizations. It never made
| sense to me that a space probe from the 70s would use anything
| but machine assembly code.
| jmclnx wrote:
| > Fortran 5 was marketed by Data General Corporation from the
| early 1970s
|
| Interesting, I never heard of Fortran 5, I remember Fortran 66,
| Fortran IV and 77, but not V. Anyway an interesting read.
| rst wrote:
| The piece documents that at least two manufacturers (Data
| General and Univac) marketed their extended Fortran IV
| compilers as "Fortran V" -- but it doesn't say whether they
| actually extended Fortran IV the same way. "Fortran V" wasn't
| the name of any official standard; the ANSI standard which more
| or less documented Fortran IV was officially Fortran 66, and
| ANSI's next version was Fortran 77.
| mek6800d2 wrote:
| Data General's compiler was "Fortran 5", not V. Univac and
| Control Data Corporation had their own Fortran Vs, but there
| was no relation between the two.
| wrs wrote:
| I learned Fortran in 1977 using WATFIV, which I _just now_
| realized was not a nonexistent Fortran 5, but the University
| of _WAT_ erloo _F_ ortran _IV_ compiler.
| mek6800d2 wrote:
| Author here--thanks for the compliment! I too had never heard
| of Fortran 5, which is why it kept bugging me every time I
| heard it mentioned in connection with Voyager over the past few
| years.
| rootbear wrote:
| Hello! This was a great read, thanks. I'm slightly amazed
| that we've never met as far as I know. I was at the U of MD
| at the same time as you (late 70s) and remember the 1108 and
| 1106 well. Friends in the Computer Vision Lab on the fourth
| floor introduced me to Unix in 1979 and I never looked back.
| I worked at Goddard from 1995-1998 in Building 26 for the
| NSSDC, then again from 1998 to 2022 in building 28 (SVS) and
| Building 11 (DCL). My father worked there from 1971 to 1987,
| in Building 11. It was a wonderful place to work.
| mek6800d2 wrote:
| Wow! Thank you! I had dropped out of school, got interested
| in computers, and returned part-time in 1978, eventually
| getting my degree in 1981. Although I used the Univacs, I
| never actually saw them! In 1980-1981, I worked as an
| undergraduate programmer for Dr. Kanal (pattern recognition
| and image processing), whose office was a step across the
| hallway from Dr. Rosenfeld's office (who founded the
| Computer Vision Lab). This gave me access to the graduate
| student computing facilities -- no more punch cards, but
| the extremely diverse array of terminals at that time made
| me understand the need for Unix's termcap! I also did work
| on the new VAX they got and Dr. Kanal's PDP-11/Unix in the
| computing lab, but, not yet being a hacker, I didn't take
| as full advantage of them as I should have!
|
| Yeah, Goddard was great. I was in Building 28 off and on
| from 1982-1984 and then in Building 23 from 1994-1996. Good
| times! Thank you for sharing your memories and your
| father's.
| ajxs wrote:
| > "As a result, it is difficult to attract younger programmers to
| join the project."
|
| Every time I read this quote I have a little bit of a laugh at
| this and think _' Sheesh, I could write 8-bit assembly all day
| long. Sign me up!'_. Do the engineers there _really_ not want to
| work on Voyager?
|
| It's also really unfortunate that Voyager's source code isn't
| likely to be released to the general public anytime soon:
|
| https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/voy...
| p_l wrote:
| Combine this with low pay and perceived (and probably
| realistic) low advancement options.
|
| At some point you start thinking about "yeah, that would be
| great, but I have mortgage to pay off" and the like.
| mek6800d2 wrote:
| I too thought this way and I figured there were probably a lot
| of engineers who were comfortably well-off and would be happy
| to relocate and work for free on Voyager.
|
| However, although there would be great emotional satisfaction
| working on such a unique project (not as great as in it's
| heyday though), there would not be an equal amount of
| intellectual satisfaction. Don't get me wrong--the current
| Voyager engineers are performing amazing intellectual feats.
| It's just that the project is nursing along the spacecraft in
| their final few communicating years as the power levels run
| out. There is probably very little programming done except to
| work around failing hardware. Non-emergency concerns probably
| mainly focus on which remaining subsystems to power down and
| when.
|
| Also, the time frames for operations are really long. I believe
| some of the current Voyager staff work only part-time on
| Voyager and younger engineers probably don't want to sit around
| twiddling their thumbs for a good amount of time while waiting
| for results. (Neither do older engineers for that matter!) The
| quote about attracting younger programmers is from Matsumoto's
| paper; she also gives this account of a 2010 memory problem:
|
| "For example, when the V2 experienced a bit flip in the FDS
| [computer] in 2010, it took about two weeks to recover enough
| to receive the engineering data, and another two weeks to
| receive the science data. It took another four and one-half
| months to adjust the timing delay caused by the anomaly and
| resynchronize the CCS and FDS clocks. Realigning the baseline
| events to the regular schedule had to be delayed even longer
| due to other activities competing for the resources."
|
| https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/pdf/10.2514/6.2016-2415 (PDF)
|
| We've seen a similar situation more recently with recovering
| from the failed FDS memory block. So, although enthusiasm is
| important for a Voyager programmer, patience is a virtue!
| trollied wrote:
| I love learning new languages, and working on something this
| incredible would be absolutely amazing.
|
| Certainly more worthwhile than modern web dev.
| exe34 wrote:
| I'm guessing maybe it's the hiring side that wants people who
| already have $x number of years experience? it reminds me of
| the guy who wrote angular(?) and wanted to apply for a job but
| couldn't, because it required 8 years of experience and this
| was only 5 years after he wrote it.
| qingcharles wrote:
| I've tried to get the source code too, but end up going around
| in circles between NASA and JPL :(
| ForHackernews wrote:
| If you're interested in the computers on the Voyager probes, this
| talk was really good: "Uptime 15,364 days"
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H62hZJVqs2o
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