Re: Furby: todays' Apple II?

[phoenyx <quazar@dcnet2000.com>]

Supertimer wrote:

> The thing about space is that advanced CPUs like the
> Pentium or the PowerPC are no-no.  If the circuitry is
> too small (and they get smaller as designers make
> chips faster), solar radiation has an easier time "flipping
> switches" in the chip, changing 1s to 0s and vice versa
> and thus crashing CPUs.  For years, NASA and the
> Russians have been using older computers that, while
> less powerful, could do the job and remain relatively
> immune to these problems.  It is when they try to use
> relatively "new" stuff that things get hairy.  The
> International Space Station, for example, will use
> primarily the "new" '386 CPUs and they have to make
> sure things are better shielded, etc.

Regarding space, does anybody have any ideas what
NASA intends to do with the 586 spec's and blueprints
which Intel donated to them?

If they use them with the gallium arsenide wafers they
recently made, they could have an incredible CPU.

Phoenyx