Re:Boeing 747s receive software updates over floppy disks
by rwmj on Monday August 10, 2020 @10:51AM
(#24109874)
The Panavia Tornado fighter jet famously used cassette tapes for mission data. I guess aircraft are a product of their time and because of stringent safety requirements why try to update something if it works fine?
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Re:Boeing 747s receive software updates over floppy disks
by stuff4ben on Monday August 10, 2020 @12:27PM
(#24111006)
Yep, same for the F-14...
"...Then there was the computing power on the aircraft—or lack thereof. It was a Commodore 64 with wings on it ...For example: the mission computer loaded off of magnetic tape.
That magnetic-tape computer had so little memory that its crew had to switch programs depending on what the jet was doing at the moment—the RIO would hit a switch to bring up the bombing program, and then after the bomb-dropping ended, they’d reload the air-to-air program"
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/navy-deathmatch-f-14-...
Re:Boeing 747s receive software updates over floppy disks
by temac on Monday August 10, 2020 @07:59PM
(#24115697)
The F14 actually had a neat processor, with an architecture which remained classified for a long time (arguably far too long at the end, but it was plainly justified at the beginning)
It was very old so, yes, I'm sure it had plenty of limitation though.