19-06-2007, 06:38
|
#14
|
|
RIP Tigger - 12 years?!
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Bolton
Age: 59
Services: EE Superfast Broadband
Posts: 1,561
|
Re: are they using Vista there???
Quote:
Originally Posted by Xaccers
I love how they each check the others, and if there's a discrepency, they vote on which answer to go with!  |
Similar to the 'I tell you three times' backup strategy Heinlein wrote about as far back as Space Family Stone (1952). The ballistics computer of the Rolling Stone had three lobes (nodes, we'd call 'em now), each of which was capable of solving the entire problem of navigating, say, from Luna to Mars. If one produced answers radically different from the other two, or failed, the two properly functioning lobes would outvote it and cut it off.
However, I imagine they're using heuristic (or, if you like, best guess) techniques now which weren't even dreamed of back then; that's how they decide which answer to go with. 2001's HAL, of course, had entirely heuristic programming, hence the acronym: Heuristic ALgorithmic.
It's still strange to think that the entire computing power of Apollo's Mission Control could now be outdone by a fairly cheap laptop...
__________________
"People tend to confuse the words 'new' and 'improved'."
- Agent Phil Coulson, S.H.I.E.L.D.
WINDOWS 11, ANYONE?!
|
|
|