Re:One second per second is harder than it sounds
by umeshunni on Tuesday July 22, 2014 @03:27AM
(#8067719)
"...the delay in distributing the software from the United States to all Patriot locations was due to the time it took to arrange for air and ground transportation in a wartime environment."
Fascinating to think that just 23 years ago, the only way to transmit the updated software was by physically transporting it from one location to another.
Re:One second per second is harder than it sounds
by thaumaturgy on Tuesday July 22, 2014 @06:16AM
(#8068168)
Just for fun: this predates ssh. Everyone was still using telnet to log in to remote boxes.
23 years ago, Slashdot didn't exist.
23 years ago, Linux had just gotten started. For all practical purposes, it wouldn't exist for another month yet.
23 years ago, Mosaic (the first "modern" web browser) didn't yet exist. That was OK, because CERN was the only website; the www didn't exist yet either.
Re:One second per second is harder than it sounds
by pjc50 on Tuesday July 22, 2014 @04:51AM
(#8067914)
I suspect you still can't do OTA updates of this kind of mission-critical system. If you can, I'd be very concerned about security.
The Gulf War Patriot was designed to shoot down Mach 2 jets, not Mach 5 Scuds.
Detonating slightly late against an aircraft is actually a good thing, since it makes the Patriot explode near the aircraft's middle instead of its nose.
A Scud is a short range ballistic missile. Once it's burnt out its fuel, it just carries on under the influence of gravity. From that point on, the only important part is the warhead in the very tip of the nose.
Detonating by the mid section of a Scud means you're just shredding empty fuel tanks. And the huge speeds involved might actually make Gulf War Patriot missiles detonate against the rear of the Scud and just shred the non-functioning engine, or even detonate behind the Scud entirely.