Rescue of data from Pioneer 10 & 11 tapes at JPL needed. Vintagecomputers slated for demolition.

[John A. Dundas III]

At 3:01 PM -0400 6/8/05, Paul Koning wrote:
>  >>>>> "William" == William Donzelli <aw288 at osfn.org> writes:
>
>  >> I wonder if it's a Cyber.  Those of course still exist in reality,
>  >> as well as in emulation.
>
>  William> Why do you think it was a CDC? JPL had no need for speed for
>  William> these tapes.
>
>For processing the data?  Remember, I'm talking about the
>postprocessing; it doesn't matter what system wrote the data.
>
>Cybers were popular back then for people who expected to do serious
>crunching, even if not all the time.  That's the only reason I was
>wondering -- it wasn't even as much as an assumption...
>
>	  paul

I want to stay out of this as I'm too close to JPL, but... JPL did 
not have any CDCs at the time.  At JPL proper for spacecraft data 
processing they had 3 IBM 360s [1st floor] and 3 Univac 1108s [2nd 
floor? hazy memory] in the SFOC.

I don't know anything about these tapes in particular, but it is 
possible they were recorded in analog right off the receivers at the 
tracking stations (Madrid, Canberra, or Goldstone) and sent to the 
Lab.  Another alternative is that they were written by Modcomps off 
of the comm link from the tracking stations [basement of SFOC].  Many 
other possibilities also exist in the signal and data processing 
chain.  Folks familiar with that project would be best equipped to 
answer.  [I started in '77 on Voyager, aka MJS in some circles.  I 
never worked on any of the Pioneers.]

John