Take a look at our
ThinkPads.com HOME PAGE
For those who might want to contribute to the blog, start here: Editors Alley Topic
Then contact Bill with a Private Message

Thinkpads on International Space Station

Got a question or suggestion about the forum? Ask or comment here, or
PM an admin or moderator.
Post Reply
Message
Author
James1138
Posts: 15
Joined: Thu Mar 10, 2016 5:35 pm
Location: Flora Indiana

Thinkpads on International Space Station

#1 Post by James1138 » Thu Nov 29, 2018 11:19 am

I just read a article about electronics having trouble working in space and the main photo shows a trusty Thinkpad T500 or T520 hanging in there. Tough little bugger!! Two thumbs up. :-D

https://www.space.com/42567-space-touri ... -data.html

James
Indiana/USA

MikalE
ThinkPadder
ThinkPadder
Posts: 1451
Joined: Sun Sep 13, 2015 9:51 pm
Location: Marissa, Illinois

Re: Thinkpads on International Space Station

#2 Post by MikalE » Thu Nov 29, 2018 1:35 pm

The A30 or A31 was the first laptop to be flight certified and flew aboard the STS.

That does look like a T500.
A31p P-IV 2Ghz, 2MB, 2653-R6U
T500 T9600 2055-BE9
T510 i5 4384-DV7
T510 i7 4349-A64
T520 i7QM 4242-4UU Highly Modified
T16 i7 1260P 21BV000SUS

Thinkpad4by3
Senior ThinkPadder
Senior ThinkPadder
Posts: 2670
Joined: Sun Aug 09, 2015 9:25 am
Location: N. Bellmore, ny

Re: Thinkpads on International Space Station

#3 Post by Thinkpad4by3 » Thu Nov 29, 2018 2:06 pm

MikalE wrote:
Thu Nov 29, 2018 1:35 pm
The A30 or A31 was the first laptop to be flight certified and flew aboard the STS.
Lol they sent up the A31 as a conspiracy so they could help save energy heating on the ISS. :lol:
Thinkpad4by3's Law of the Universe.

The efficiency of two screens equally sized with equal numbers if pixels are equal. The time spent by a 4:3 user complaining about 16:9 is proportional to the inefficiency working with a 16:9 display, therefore the amount of useful work extracted is equal.

pkiff
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 1607
Joined: Wed May 05, 2004 9:17 am
Location: Toronto, Canada

Re: Thinkpads on International Space Station

#4 Post by pkiff » Thu Nov 29, 2018 9:54 pm

Heh heh.

Not sure what they have up there now, but at one point apparently they had 68 A31's and 32 T61p's. It's hard to tell whether something is a T500 vs a T61p, I think?

When you check out a video of the inside of the station, you can quickly see why they like Thinkpads: the Trackpoint is essential - there are no mice anywhere!! For example, check out "100 ThinkPads in the ISS above us" posted was back in 2014:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4Xyl4cW5yc

It gives you a view of all kinds of Thinkpads all over the ISS. And you can see that practically all the laptops are held up by various laptop arms, so they need to have some kind of built-in mouse control. I guess these days you could have a trackpad, but up until the last 10 years or so, if you were running Linux or Windows, then the trackpads kinda sucked compared to the Trackpoint. Macs were the only machines with good trackpads back then, and no one is going to take a Mac up in space. Macs barely knew what an enterprise network was 10 years ago, and if you wanted to plug something into a Mac that wasn't made by Apple then you'd be SOL. Whereas, you can bet that they are still bringing up new devices to the ISS and plugging them into these old machines and making them work today.
X1E Gen 4 · X1T 3rd Gen · W520 · Legacy: P52, T60p, X61T, 600X, 770Z
Nostalgic for: 600X PIII 850MHz in a SelectaDock III with 64MB Voodoo 5 5500 and Sound Blaster Audigy 5.1.

Thinkpad4by3
Senior ThinkPadder
Senior ThinkPadder
Posts: 2670
Joined: Sun Aug 09, 2015 9:25 am
Location: N. Bellmore, ny

Re: Thinkpads on International Space Station

#5 Post by Thinkpad4by3 » Thu Nov 29, 2018 10:15 pm

pkiff wrote:
Thu Nov 29, 2018 9:54 pm
It's hard to tell whether something is a T500 vs a T61p, I think?
Its a T61p. You can tell by the faint but lower case p in the photo and the ports on the side.

Funny enough the Macintosh Portable went to the space. They had problems because the auto-ejecting floppy drives sent the disk flying inside the station without gravity. Here is a video of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMNw99Q8Ok0
Thinkpad4by3's Law of the Universe.

The efficiency of two screens equally sized with equal numbers if pixels are equal. The time spent by a 4:3 user complaining about 16:9 is proportional to the inefficiency working with a 16:9 display, therefore the amount of useful work extracted is equal.

pkiff
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 1607
Joined: Wed May 05, 2004 9:17 am
Location: Toronto, Canada

Re: Thinkpads on International Space Station

#6 Post by pkiff » Thu Nov 29, 2018 10:54 pm

Ha ha! That's funny. *Now* we know why they stayed away from Macs up in space!
X1E Gen 4 · X1T 3rd Gen · W520 · Legacy: P52, T60p, X61T, 600X, 770Z
Nostalgic for: 600X PIII 850MHz in a SelectaDock III with 64MB Voodoo 5 5500 and Sound Blaster Audigy 5.1.

Post Reply

Return to “Forum Notices, Questions and Suggestions”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 29 guests