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