NASA's $2.5bn Curiosity rover: An Apple PowerBook on wheels It's a bit sturdier than the average Apple product, but the Curiosity rover that touched down on Mars on Monday is powered by the same processor family used in Apple's 1997 PowerBook G3 laptop. For its nuclear-powered life-hunting tank, NASA chose a 200MHz PowerPC 750 CPU specifically hardened to withstand radiation and space …
Yes but it's another case of a misleading headline, making a tenuous link to Apple to appear to give them credit, whilst leaving the true details buried in the text. It means people who see this headline in the front page or "popular" topics will be misled, if they aren't interested enough to read the full article. It's bad enough the endless such-and-such "done with an Iphone", when when the use of a phone is the least important part of the process - now we have references where it isn't even anything to do with Apple in the first place.
"The PowerPC was not an Apple product, made by Motorola or IBM"
Lets read the article again...
"is powered by the same processor family used in Apple's 1997 PowerBook G3 laptop."
I don't see anything about the processor being an Apple product. It only says "used" by Apple in a 15yo laptop
It only says "used" by Apple in a 15yo laptop» And this reference, while no doubt pleasing to the fanboi contingent, is completely irrelevant to the subject of the article, which is the point made above by several commentators. Shouldn't be all that difficult to understand, with careful study and application....
Henri
Anna Leach is on trolling league of her own, she's the one that article after article, almost without fail, makes me want to give up reading The Register. I've even written a regexp that blocks ads just on her articles so that El area gets no financial compensation from me reading this rubbish.
In this single article she manages to insult the teams who created the rover and the PowerPC 750, but not satisfied with that troll then brings up the PowerBook 6300 for no good reason instead of mentioning machines that actually had the PowerPC 750...
I guess it depends on how you read whether you have "Must hate Apple" glasses on, but I really didn't see any of what you saw. No, I am not an apologist - I don't particularly care enough for Apple or any other computer manufacturer to get angry about trivial things like a humorous article.
Some of you need to step back from the monitor and chill out for 10 minutes, instead of bashing the keyboard in anger. If there is one site that does not particularly care for Apple in its reporting, it's the reg.
> I guess it depends on how you read whether you have "Must hate Apple" glasses
This kind of mindless pointless over-hyping by the media is where that "must hate Apple" attitude comes from.
This situation had exactly SQUAT to do with Apple but some fanboy had to associate them with a project they really had nothing to do with.
I have to agree with you, why Apple even mentioned is realy not the direction of things anybody wants, even Apple.
What next reports that Peter and Jane are huge Apple fans who went back in time to brainwash us via there cunning maths questions!
Had the article highighted that the issues in space mean that you cant just use off the shelf CPU's and bung them into a lead casing and looked at the issues in more detail, that would of been a good read. Had it gone and linked the programming standards and the like involved and a bit of details about the code and how all this runs on less CPU power than a 10 years old mobile phone then that would of been a little bit more suitable.
But no, somebody had to mention Apple and highjack there own article, thats our job as and when you do that in the article then you leave us with no choice but to call you out on it :p.
http://lars-lab.jpl.nasa.gov/JPL_Coding_Standard_C.pdf <---JPL's programming standard used to code the code that is running on Mars as we speak. Now that is a worthy read and no Apples involved.
Maybe she thought all bright sparks avidly reading everything about this would've read the article yesterday stating which computer was actually being used? Or be bright enough to realise before even reading her article that she may have been being humorous? Guess that's not permitted by all you fanboys - sad, humourless gits the lot of you. Piss off and read NASA's page instead, saddos ...
But no commenter suggests that an article called "A Xerox laserprinter on wheels" would sound better?
Apple used this processor for personal computing and to my knowing no other brand. Therefore it's a funny comparison with enough technical and historical connection to be meaningful. The Apple hate seems a bit over the top here and that is said my someone who doesn't even like Apple anymore.
I found the Apple link extremely tenuous, personally. But then, given the author's previous articles:
http://search.theregister.co.uk/?author=Anna%20Leach
It's hardly surprising. Every other one is about Apple in some form or another.
I know we all have preferences, and those preferences creep through into articles, but we can stop the really gratuitous examples of trying to equate a NASA Mars landing and Apple somehow. Hell, even if they'd just compared it to, say, a modern laptop (brand name not required) and explained that "even Apple used similar chips historically" would have been enough.
I count three "Apple"'s, three "PowerBook"'s, one "MacBook" and one "iPod", in an article about something where there is ZERO Apple hardware or business connection. That's excessive for a six paragraph article.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
