Just saw an item on channel 4 news about these Royal Navy warships due in service in 2014. The software chosen to control the weapon systems on these ships has been selected. And it is....wait for it.
Who makes these decisions? Do my tax pounds really pay their salary, and are my tax pounds really going to pay their pensions! I'm am gobsmaked!
Glad I didn't vote New Labour, or I would have to hold myself responsible. Why's it called Windows? Because that's what you throw it out of, but there are no 'windows' (or more correctly, scuttles) in Naval Ops Rooms... So where are they going to throw it out of!
Are the Tories planning not to spend money on weaponry then? [doesn't apply if you voted Green of course]
But I digress. Anyway, I can't believe that Windows will be driving the weaponry system (unless they've adapted Minesweeper) - the former is just an operating system - it must an application running over it. I would guess that it is the interaction between the two that is causing a problem.
nb: the bbc news site says they're supposed to enter service in 2007
Does this mean if you dont get a UN mandate to go to war, after firing a missile, windows will display the message " your program has just performed an illegal operation"?
well if its like the 2 type 22 frigates BAE Systems have got sold to the Romanians...with £100 mil upgrade on top..each...and like the Canadian submarines then the UK economy is going to score on their general mismanagement and lack of project management
usual MOD contract write cheque cost plus agreed profit...
Over 1000 posts and I bought this Personal Title to try and tell my mother the embarrassing news that I am a closet Jazz fan.
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: Manchester
Posts: 138
Its more to do with Pentiums being standardized due to EMC, stress and vibration testing issues than the operating system itself.
It's much cheaper to buy off the shelf than to create an even more bugridden (difficult to do but possible) bespoke application that causes the ship to be near useless until the Navy actually decide what they want it to do and the programmers bugger off on higher paying contracts that don't **** them about.
It's much cheaper to buy off the shelf than to create an even more bugridden (difficult to do but possible) bespoke application that causes the ship to be near useless until the Navy actually decide what they want it to do and the programmers bugger off on higher paying contracts that don't **** them about
S'funny, last night while looking at my computer, the thought crossed my mind that Hood, POW, Bismark, Prinz Eugen, Rodney and KGV beat the living daylights out of each other without a single electronic computer in any of them. There weren't any in the Stringbags that blew the rudder off Bismark either and they flew off a carrier that was 'taking it green over the bow' then mind-bogglingly, found it again and 'landed' (BTW, how does one land on a carrier? Shouldn't that be alighted?). Meanwhile, my Dad's destroyer group sank two destroyers, 4 U-boats and five E-boats without the use of any software whatsoever. In those days they just relied on hard men.
Then there was the Aegis cruiser that mistook an Iranian Airbus A300 flying at more than 20,000 feet for a Mig flying an attack profile...
No electronic computers, they didn't come in till 1943. But they had electromechanical calculators. The Hood had the Dreyer Table with electrical Dumaresq.
[doesn't apply if you voted Green of course]
