Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site ames.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!hao!ames!eugene From: eugene@ames.UUCP (Eugene Miya) Newsgroups: net.columbia Subject: Re: Old fashion computing practices @ NASA Message-ID: <1073@ames.UUCP> Date: Thu, 8-Aug-85 05:25:43 EDT Article-I.D.: ames.1073 Posted: Thu Aug 8 05:25:43 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 11-Aug-85 06:24:13 EDT References: <1079@cbdkc1.UUCP> Organization: NASA-Ames Research Center, Mtn. View, CA Lines: 84 > A former prof of mine, and good friend, worked for NASA through a > subcontractor > for a period of time after receiving his PhD. He told me that there were > "old" > diehards that still used cards to program when he was there (74-77). > This was > inspite of the fact that modern terminals were available. He also said that > one of the main launch sequencing programs for the shuttle was written > in FORTRAN and it included hundreds of lines of EQU's at the beginning. > > Can anyone confirm or deny this? > > George Erhart Okay. Below my office in a corner is a card punch room. CONFIRMED. P.S. many of the users of cards are visiting scientists (physicists and chemists for example) who brought cards with them for sabbatical. This is 1985. I have worked directly with NASA since 1977. At many NASA sites: modern terminals are not available. There are millions of lines of FORTRAN available from NASA from the public domain thru COSMIC (NASA's software distribution service). NASA's problem stems from the fact that it got into the computer world quite early and it froze it's perspective on computer technology with the IBM 360/FORTRAN world in the 1960s. It felt it had to freeze this perspective for a variety of reasons which I won't cover. In 1978, Carl Sagan, Raj Reddy, Ed Feignenbaum [sorry, I was describing this story at lunch] put together a committee to look at the use of robtics and AI in NASA. This partially stemmed from a problem on the second Viking Lander on Mars which had a bolt stuck in a joint on the arm to dig trenches. A loop wiggled the arm back and forth til the bolt dropped out. This set of commands had to be tested on earth and then sent 7 light- minutes to Mars and then back before this problem was freed. The question: could an AI program have figured this out instead? Early on NASA, like many businesses, looked at AI skeptically and dropped it. It looked at more more than teleoperators. Back to Sagan. They published this report which said that the computing practices of NASA were in some cases 10-15 years behind the rest of the world. There was a fundamental problem in computer science much less AI. The report came out in a plain red cover without a NASA logo [I guard my copy]. Regarding punch cards, in particular, it mentioned that even in the best cases cards were only replaced by card images and submitted by batch. My observations: 1st Unix system in NASA: a bootlegged system [this machine I am posting on] in 1979. No NASA purchased DEC-10s, and very little LISP work. Heavy use of IBM, Univac, and CDC hardware. Dominance of Modcomp computers for "real-time" work [recall Thompson's comments about the popularity of the PDP-11 in the 1974 Unix paper]. I moved from JPL to Ames in 1982. Around 1980. It became clear to NASA HQ that something had to be done about upgrading NASA computing. Software schedules tended to be critical on some space projects, the increible bulk of data from satellite sensors was going unanalyzed, more performance was needed. There was no office of NASA particularly oriented to computing [still to this day]. NASA's purpose was to do space and aeronautics. An effort began to improve this situation. Funding has begun on particular 'mission' areas: realtime systems software engineering, scientific database, and supercomputing, oh, and some AI. A new institute: RIACS the Research Institute for Advanced Computer Science was formed headed by Peter Denning for a couple of these cases. Money was put into doing "real" computer work. The problem comes with some managers trying to tell the difference on research done on computers and research on computers. Change is occurring, but it takes time. Many people are still skeptical of this effort. LANs, for instance, are still quite scarce in NASA, yet we have the Deep Space Net talking to satellites far away. BASIC is stilling being used in many parts of NASA. The IBM-oriented managers (old time FORTRAN people) still have a great deal of power which we did not expect to be a problem, but turf wars are everywhere. Things are changing: more young visiting scientists are coming and just this day, a couple physicists came asking for access to Unix rather than VMS. [Many others like VMS's prompts for Filenames.] This says nothing of the people who still use TSS here. We're catching up. --eugene miya NASA Ames Research Center {hplabs,ihnp4,dual,hao,decwrl,allegra}!ames!aurora!eugene emiya@ames-vmsb