Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Voyager nonvolatile memory slips from 0 to a 1 after 33 years

Voyager 2's initial mission was a four-year journey to Saturn, but it is still returning data 33 years later
"A value in a single memory location was changed from a 0 to a 1," said JPL’s Veronia McGregor.
Voyager 2 and its twin, Voyager 1, are both expected to enter interstellar space -- the first human-made objects to do so -- in the next five years. Computer Command System (CCS) - 18-bit word, interrupt type processors (2) with 4096 words each of plated wire, non-volatile memory.The construction is very sensitive and error-prone. While the wires could be replaced in the former storage systems, typical plated wire storages were completely stuck together so they could not be repared later on. This was a disaster for the companies which made use of this storage.

BAD HARDWARE: Seems we got a new definition of memory's non-volatility.Long term magnetic storage? Forget about it. SSD? Hahahahaha. Provided that we inside the Solar system are not immune to above kind of events.

Comments: Post a Comment



<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?