MER Spirt malfunctioning

[az]

Maybe it somehow activated its firewall? Or a virus? (Now THAT would be an achievement )

AZ

[Jon P. Inghram]

It's a cover up! The supposed "noise" they received was actually an MP3, here's a short exerpt of what was heard: "Daisy....Daisy.....Give me your answer due.....I'm half-crazy....all for the love of you...."

[Jon P. Inghram]

Hmm... apparently the rovers onboard software is written in C... not exactly a language I would have chosen for such a mission critical application that can't simply be taken to the back of the shop and reinstalled like a typical piece of Earth-based hardware. The OS is VxWorks, the CPU a RAD6000. Green Hills Software (the company that BAE Systems, the computers manufacturer, uses to provide software support) has an Ada compiler... I personally would have picked that, it's a far easier to comprehend language than C when you're trying to be damn sure there's no bugs, however subtle they might be.

[Wombat]

Originally posted by Jon P. Inghram
Hmm... apparently the rovers onboard software is written in C... not exactly a language I would have chosen for such a mission critical application that can't simply be taken to the back of the shop and reinstalled like a typical piece of Earth-based hardware. The OS is VxWorks, the CPU a RAD6000. Green Hills Software (the company that makes the RAD6000) has an Ada compiler... I personally would have picked that, it's a far easier to comprehend language than C when you're trying to be damn sure there's no bugs, however subtle they might be.

I disagree totally. Ada....SUCKS. But I'd rather focus on the virtues of C here.

Very precise coding, great hardware accessibility, compact compilations, support across a multitude of architectures. Spirit is running a ton of devices from various sources, and I feel much better having people hand in C code with their toy than Ada.

[Jon P. Inghram]

The endless list of Ada operated military devices might indicate something about it's usefulness in mission critical systems. But I'll concede that there are far more people skilled at writting C/C++.

[Marshmallowman]

I think is ADA is quite cool in itself, but not something I personally would use in such an enviroment, i think of it more as a highlevel language(well spanning mid -hi)

C is is the midlevel workhorse language of choice for a lot embedded stuff and for good reason.

But as I understand it ADA has had quite an exposure in this area over the years....ADA something I always wanted to learn but never had enough reason to, but it has a lot(and more) of the flexibilty of C++.

[KvHagedorn]

I think one of the reasons the space program was done so well in the 60s was that they used assembler, and had more than one ubergeek to check and recheck it a dozen times. Also, it helps when you have a cohesive society with a goal. We don't anymore. There's too many other things that take priority over doing the job right.

[Jon P. Inghram]

Why do you feel that Ada sucks, Wombat? I've got no personal attachment towards it or any other language so feel free to say what you will.

As far as assembly language it seems the x86 processors and Windows have been designed to try to discourage machine language.

[VJ]

Surely they must have hardware systems that reboot/restart the computer in event of malfunctions ? (even some mainboards have this: WatchDog)

I do notice that more and more people (students) are having issues with programming in C. A lot of them get accustomed to Java (with its garbage collection); whereas in C you have to be accurate about everything...

Jörg

[gt40]

OK, after much research and effort by myself personally,
I have found the problem.

[RedRed]

Good one GT - wondered how long it would be before that option was suggested!

[Gurm]

That picture is blurry and distorted - what is it supposed to be, GT?

- Gurm

[gt40]

Originally posted by Gurm
That picture is blurry and distorted - what is it supposed to be, GT?

- Gurm

I tried to make it a little more realistic, but here's the original:

[GT98]

Well looks like it was a hickup!

Guess the Martains got bored playing with it

Mars Rover Resumes Sending Data Back to Earth

[cjolley]

w00t!
chuck