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Comment on The MP944 was the ‘real’ world’s first microprocessor, but it was top secret for nearly 30 years — F-14 Tomcat's chip lived in the shadow of the Intel 4004, but was eight times faster

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jqubed@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

Unless they’re seeing actual benefits for a neural processing unit, I’d guess you’re right about the processors. The ISS runs on 386 processors and those were a surprisingly outdated choice in that era. Even with the advanced flight characteristics of a modern fighter, I’d guess they don’t really need the power modern chips are capable of offering.

But yeah, the radars and other sensors? Certainly not off-the-shelf for flagship aircraft.

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shalafi@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I thought NASA was well stocked with 486 CPUs? Quite a cut about the 386! (I know the ISS is not all NASA.) In any case, the wide wires make for less bit flipping. :)

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CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

Even with the advanced flight characteristics of a modern fighter, I’d guess they don’t really need the power modern chips are capable of offering.

I mean, it’s not just fly-by-wire. If they do any signal processing in CPU or GPU they’d need power - and I’m sure they do for the higher level processing, since they’re always updating things like target identification and electronic countermeasures to keep pace.

The F-35, for example, also famously has all kinds of automatic combat information and networked communications management, and includes a display that allows pilots to virtually see through the floor. It adds up to 4 million lines of code or so. (All proprietary and controlled by America, which has made Canada’s acquisition deal a political hot potato post-Trump)

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