Operating Systems > Linux and UNIX
w00t!!
Sleeping Dog:
Thanks for the date correction RSD. I remember hearing a pre-Yuri news story when I was a kid that the Russians had sent another dog into space. However, the telemetry being sent back indicated a human (not canine) heartbeat.
I also remember that the international "rules" for laying claim to being the first into "space" were that the pilot had to return to earth in his "ship". Yuri did not do this. He bailed out and parachuted to the ground. The Russians got around this "condition" simply by lying about it. As with so much other dis-information, the truth has only come to light since the collapse of the "Iron Curtain".
Cheers and Beers
Sleeping Dog
Sleeping Dog:
So my lady and I are reposing there in bed....enjoying the after-glow of a Leno monologue (yeah....that was the afterglow....right) So I decide to channel-surf as she drifts off into ZZZ-land.
I hit the History Channel and they are doing a thing about WWII American submarines. Next thing I see, they are giving more details about the computer that we were talking about earlier in this thread. I grabbed a pen and wrote down all that I could.
Here it is:
It was called a TDC (Torpedo Data Computer). They were produced by a company called ARMA and the first one (the Mark I) was installed into an American Fleet Submarine in 1936. They were so large that they were initially put in an area of the main hull below the conning tower. They were electro-mechanical computers that calculated such input as range, speed, course, angle on the bow, etc. If all of this info did not correlate properly, the machine would return an error message requiring new data input. (Would you call that a deep-blue screen of death?)
The next version of the TDC came in 1940 and was put into the conning tower of the `Pacific Fleet Boats'. It was smaller, but still necessitated lengthening the conning towers of the submarines by at least a foot. It was called the Mark III.
Despite the fact that this was the most sophisticated "computer based" torpedo aiming system ever devised up until that time, the American pig boats were hampered by faulty torpedoes (Mark 14's) that had a 50+% failure rate until mid 1943 (Must have been manufactured by Microsoft) After mid-43, the US submarines did to the Japanese what the Germans failed to do to the British.....they shut down the system by shutting down merchant shipping. (and they proably hurt their self-esteem too...)
The only surviving example of a TDC that still survives is in the USS Pompano that is at permanent "museum" moorings at Fishermans Wharf in California. The TDC has been restored by a university prof named Terry ______ (did not get the last name) Supposedly, the thing is still/now working.
Don't know if you really care....but I felt obligated to share this additional info considering everyone else's input into this thread.
Have a Great Weekend
Sleeping Dog
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