From: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24542368/&GT1=43001 in the middle of the article:

Edwards attributes that to a lucky twist: The computer was running an ancient operating system, DOS, which does not scatter data all over drives as other approaches do.

Typically, I associate ancient with the Roman Empire or similar, not DOS.  I guess TRWTF is Windows, as usual...

AccessGuru:

I associate ancient with the Roman Empire or similar, not DOS

In the context of computing... I would definitely consider DOS ancient.

I don't even understand why this would make a difference.  If the blocks were unrecoverable, it wouldn't matter what order they were in.  And we're probably not talking about a ton of data if it was running DOS so you'd think it could be pieced back together if a different FS was used.  Of course, not if you're using ReiserFS, then not even the FBI can recover it...

morbiuswilters:

If the blocks were unrecoverable, it wouldn't matter what order they were in. 

Maybe aliens reorganized the data. 

The WTF I thought of was it was only a 340MB drive ... but then again it was only half full so ...

Anyway I think this data recovery was pretty incredible.  

AccessGuru:

From: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24542368/&GT1=43001 in the middle of the article:

Edwards attributes that to a lucky twist: The computer was running an ancient operating system, DOS, which does not scatter data all over drives as other approaches do.

Typically, I associate ancient with the Roman Empire or similar, not DOS.  I guess TRWTF is Windows, as usual...

I'd consider DOS as "ancient", but then even in computing there are others that better qualify as ancient: System360, MVS, VMS and other stuff few modern users have never heard about.

I'd also wonder why did they use DOS for scientific research... but then again, they did manage to avoid Windows ;)

 Yeah... this made me feel old.  I'm glad everyone else thought of DailyWTF as the first place to go when seeing this. ;)

AccessGuru:

From: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24542368/&GT1=43001 in the middle of the article:

Edwards attributes that to a lucky twist: The computer was running an ancient operating system, DOS, which does not scatter data all over drives as other approaches do.

Typically, I associate ancient with the Roman Empire or similar, not DOS.  I guess TRWTF is Windows, as usual...

DOS is about 30 years old.
Human civilization is about 7000 years old
Optimistic: computer history is 200 years old (differential machine #1)
    DOS is one-thousand years old (early middle ages, not really ancient yet)
Realistic: computer history is 125 years old (Tabulating machine)
    DOS is 1700 years old (late roman empire).

So, is DOS ancient? My answer would be: yes.

I'm not sure if they were really running DOS as an operating system.
There was a story about Mars rover Spirit. The article says that Spirit was running an embedded OS (one from Wind River ) which is based on a Linux kernel, but was in fact using DOS file system (this version has "MS-DOS compatible file system" as one of its features ).
I think it was the same with that computer from Columbia.

From what I recall, they intentionally use older chips/hardware on the shuttles because the pathways are less dense.  Solar radiation/etc can introduce random electrical charges that 'jump' the circuitry of newer chips, simply because the paths are so small and densely packed.  The older chips are less susceptible to this effect. 

Just what I heard though.

Also, regarding the recovery:  if you recover x% of a drive, and the data is highly fragmented, you may not get much useful information, especially if any level of encryption is used where you need complete sets of data to reconstruct the parts.  (not that I would expect that to be the case here).  With a less fragmented media, you'll have some data completely lost and other data completely (or near completely) recovered.  That makes some sense to me.

Also older chips are proven bug-free and come in version that can withstand radiation. What if NASA had decided to go with a AMDK6-2 back in the day...

Spacecoyote:

Also older chips are proven bug-free and come in version that can withstand radiation. What if NASA had decided to go with a AMDK6-2 back in the day...

They would have been distracted playing Quake...

lonewolf:

There was a story about Mars rover Spirit. The article says that Spirit was running an embedded OS (one from Wind River ) which is based on a Linux kernel

VxWorks is NOT based on Linux kernel.

dtech:

Well, if you compare computer history to human history...

DOS is about 30 years old.
Human civilization is about 7000 years old
Optimistic: computer history is 200 years old (differential machine #1)
    DOS is one-thousand years old (early middle ages, not really ancient yet)
Realistic: computer history is 125 years old (Tabulating machine)
    DOS is 1700 years old (late roman empire).

So, is DOS ancient? My answer would be: yes.

What about the Antikythera mechanism?

That makes computer history 2100 years old, which makes DOS only 100 years old using your relative scale ;P

But if Babbage doesn't get counted, then neither does ancient Greece I guess..

DOS means disk operating system right? nothing to do with windows, linux is a dos etc ... maybe the author of that article was just providing an acronym for a common term (operating system) got things a little confused, and added in the D somehow.

dysmas:

DOS means disk operating system right? nothing to do with windows, linux is a dos etc ... maybe the author of that article as just providing an acronym for a common term (operating system) and got things a little confused, and added in the D somehow.

 

dtech:

No. DOS is indeed the abbreviation for "Disk Operating System". But it is just the name of the OS. There is no "a dos". Linux is not "a dos" ...

While i maintain DOS to be a generic term for a system that can operate a disk, and the fact that there is more than one means that there is such a thing as "a dos", that usually exhibit traits such as being a single user, single tasking character based environment, and i believe various DOSs used things other than x86 processors, i will not continue that,

Abobe/previous post was/is meant kinda tounge in cheek,

I wonder why they did not say fat16 / whatever filesystem it uses, or does it _really_ use MS-DOS.

ActionMan:

But if Babbage doesn't get counted, then neither does ancient Greece I guess..

Charles Babbage designed the difference engine (referred to above as "differential machine #1." Incidentally, in recent years, there have been several working replicas built, including a very spiffy shiny one I saw the other day, as well as a Lego Technix version (not as spiffy, but extremely cool).

ActionMan:

What about the Antikythera mechanism?

That makes computer history 2100 years old, which makes DOS only 100 years old using your relative scale ;P

But if Babbage doesn't get counted, then neither does ancient Greece I guess..

dtech:

ActionMan:

;-P

^º¿º^

dysmas:

I wonder why they did not say fat16 / whatever filesystem it uses, or does it _really_ use MS-DOS

What if it was PC-DOS?  

And if it *were* MS-DOS, what version?  My money is on 5.0.  If it was 4.x that explains why it crashed...  

dysmas:

While i maintain DOS to be a generic term for a system that can operate a disk

I can understand your point, I don't agree though.  If you look at a lot of college curriculums you won't see courses on Fundamentals of Disk Operating Systems, but you will see Fundamentals of Operating Systems, and Operating System Design, etc...  Not saying colleges do things right by any means, but if we were to apply a benchmark for validity of the acronym.  Or for that matter, if you asked most of the community what they thought when you said "DOS" 90% would probably say 'MS Dos or refer to MS DOS or PC-DOS in some way.  so yeah, basically what dtech said.  

cege7480:

I can understand your point, I don't agree though.  If you look at a lot of college curriculums you won't see courses on Fundamentals of Disk Operating Systems, but you will see Fundamentals of Operating Systems, and Operating System Design, etc...  Not saying colleges do things right by any means, but if we were to apply a benchmark for validity of the acronym.  Or for that matter, if you asked most of the community what they thought when you said "DOS" 90% would probably say 'MS Dos or refer to MS DOS or PC-DOS in some way.  so yeah, basically what dtech said.  

 

Right, even if DOS technically just stands for a "disk operating system," the word itself has come to have a completely different meaning, if you want to get really pedantic about it. It's like with PC - it stands for Personal Computer, which includes Apples, but the word PC means only IBM-compatibles (there's gotta be a better word for that than "IBM-compatible"...).

cege7480:

dysmas:

I wonder why they did not say fat16 / whatever filesystem it uses, or does it _really_ use MS-DOS

 

What if it was PC-DOS?  

And if it *were* MS-DOS, what version?  My money is on 5.0.  If it was 4.x that explains why it crashed...  

dtech:

PC-DOS is just a rebranded version of MS-DOS.

True. What if it was DR-DOS?