Less than two weeks ago, after more than half a year and 472 million kilometers on the road, the new Mars rover “Perseverance” landed successfully on our neighboring planet. Since then, “Perseverance”, as the vehicle is called in Europe, has been broadcasting spectacular otherworldly images.
Die Mission: In addition to beautiful pictures, Perseverance should of course also help us to gain new scientific knowledge about Mars. The one-ton rover will investigate the Jezero crater in the northern hemisphere of the earth-like planet over the next few years fossil traces of life.
In addition, Perseverance is equipped with all kinds of ultra-modern and highly sensitive scientific equipment. But a component could almost be a fossil itself – at least from the point of view of computer evolution (via The standard
Games like 1997: Our retro PC with Pentium II and Voodoo I was also made from almost petrified components, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of GameStar four years ago:
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Retro PC – games like 1997
23 year old processor as the basis
The beating heart of the Mars rover is namely a single-core CPU based on the now almost 23-year-old IBM PowerPC 750, the iconic iMac G3 accelerated. But why is NASA building such old technology into a state-of-the-art device like the Mars rover? After all, Core i7, Core i9, Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 9 are available these days.
The answer to that is very simple:
“Compared to a Core i5 in your laptop, it is [der PowerPC 750] much slower […]. But it’s much more about reliability and robustness than about speed. I have to make sure he’s always working. “
In addition to the apparently basically good suitability for space travel, the PowerPC 750 was also revised to withstand radiation exposure of 200,000 to 1,000,000 radians and enormous temperature fluctuations from -55 to 125 degrees. BAE Systems does this and calls the CPU RAD750.
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Hardware & Tech News – Sony confirms VR glasses for PlayStation 5
Andreas Sperling deals with the latest technology in our new video format: This time, among other things, with the new VR glasses for the PlayStation 5.
