Sol 400
AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE – MISSION DAY 407
ARES III SOL 400
[09:03] WATNEY: Hello, this is Starlight Glimmer. Mark is busy today- he’s moving the south weather station to the cave farm so we can figure out exactly how much heat the cave is losing without the life support system. I have a solution in mind, but I need to be careful how I implement it so I don’t accidentally cook the plants we’re trying to preserve.
But I can’t work on that without the data from Mark and a few other things, so I’m working on the Sparkle Drive for the MAV today. The new crystal has been installed in the old control system for some time. But since we won’t have the old ship computer in the MAV with us, I need help connecting the Drive to the MAV computer, or failing that one of Mark’s portable computers.
The Sparkle Drive works by signal from a computer. The version of the Drive that got us here jumped two meters at a time. We programmed our computer to trigger a jump every four computer cycles, or about 250,000 times per second. In our home universe that worked fine, but when we made the cross-universe jump our batteries were instantly drained to nothing. The Drive tried to draw more power, and the batteries crumbled to dust under the strain.
To prevent that, the new Sparkle Drive makes a much smaller jump, one which (we think) will only draw the power that seven batteries can regenerate with the six of us right next to them producing a tiny trickle of magic from our life force. We think a half-meter jump per cycle for capsule plus second stage (6 tons) will be small enough to allow the batteries to regenerate. The new Drive cannot make an inter-universal jump, so the danger of the power system failing in the same way as before is almost zero.
We also have two other settings, 0.65 meters per jump for capsule only and 0.2 meters per jump for the capsule docked with Hermes, based on the masses in your records. Those settings are adjusted by placing electrodes in different spots on the core crystal and can’t be changed by the computer.
So what we need is an electrical connection that can pulse hundreds of thousands of times per second (it only takes a tiny charge) that the computer can operate. We need a program the computer can run to do this. And, finally, we need navigation software updates to take this system into account for trajectory calculations.
Obviously I don’t expect you to do this overnight. We can’t install it until we get to the MAV. But I’m sending you photos and descriptions of the updated system and its specifications, as well as Dragonfly and I can translate them, for you to work from. I’ll begin sending as soon as you give me the word.
[09:55] JPL: Starlight, this is Venkat Kapoor. I have some engineers here eager to get started on your project. We’ve been expecting this for months. Go ahead and begin transmission.
[10:18] WATNEY: Thank you. File transfer begins immediately.
MISSION LOG – SOL 400
Well, it’s official; the cave is slowly losing heat. The new solar relays aren’t quite providing enough infrared along with the other components of sunlight to compensate for the loss of the water heating system.
It’s not an immediate urgent issue; only four degrees Celsius in a week. Also, there’s a good probability that the system will reach equilibrium well above freezing. But that’s during Martian summer, and the days are growing shorter. If we leave things as they are, eventually overnight temperatures will dip below freezing, and then the temperature won’t rise above freezing come the winter solstice. The alfalfa and potato plants above ground would die off, possibly to re-sprout five months later or so- or not. The cherry trees would probably be all right, except that the water recycling system requires magic from the plant life to work, and without that the water would sink to the bottom of the sealed cave chamber, beyond the reach of the roots of those trees. Without water circulation, even the roots and tubers die, and no more magic, no more plants, no more farm. Game over.
Starlight Glimmer says she can do a trick with the rainbow crystals- basically, to turn a few into little heating elements. The problem is, she can’t enchant the crystal to only operate at certain temperatures. Enchantments are not very good at making judgments- that’s one reason why the ponies ended up here in the first place. So she’s thinking about it, trying to come up with a solution.
So tomorrow will be a make-and-mend day. I’ll run diagnostics and maintenance on the Hab equipment- probably the last time I’ll ever do it. Dragonfly will do maintenance and patching on the pony space suits. They’re going to need it more than ever, since three of them will walk almost the entire distance to Schiaparelli. Starlight will be working on the enchantment for keeping the cave temperatures moderate. I don’t know what Fireball, Cherry Berry and Spitfire will be doing, but I’m sure there’s something constructive on their minds.
Two days from now, we’ll attempt Sirius 5C. This time we’re going to run until we just barely have the juice to get back to the Hab. If all goes well, we can proceed to the next test: spending the night in the trailer.
I mentioned this fact to my guests. I now know the pony words for “slumber party.”
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It begins
Heh. Learning language the hard way - though Mark, luckily, has someone bilingual enough to avoid the mythical mistake of thinking "kangaroo" referred to a specific animal rather than meaning "I don't understand".
Otherwise, he might have just learned some rather choice words on the unpleasantness of spending a night in the rover.
Getting good
Ah, but can you pronounce them without making the ponies wince?
Cue Starlight and Dragonfly fighting over who gets to "cuddle" Mark
So about the same ~1MHz performance as the MOS Technology 6510 used in the Commodore 64.
So the pony computer was about 1 megahert? Good thing she is asking for help then.
The whole "counting cycles to measure time" on computers always ends up badly when tech moves on. Just look at the ammount of old games where the game was tied to CPU speeds that are unplayable today due to that.
9090271 I can see the reaction. "No, we can't get a quarter million impulses per second. The slowest we can go with our computers is about 20 million cycles per second. Can you make the Sparkle Drive jump about a centimeter at a time?"
9090273
or an os that won't work with the game that is tied to the architecture, like how an 8 bit come can run on the 16 bit but not the 32 bit and so on.
i have to buy a computer just to run 32 bit windows to play many of my old computer games now, buying it soon as i can now before it become WAY over price like the 8 bit and 16 bit computers now.
9090271
boy I would love to see the look on there face when they have to call in some old-timers in their mid-60s or 70s having to come on board to help with this problem
9090267
That would be glorious
9090349
Maybe they can wire the drive up to Sojourner.
9090286
*pawn stars theme*
"Lowest I can do is 500MHz"
Eh. Starlight's temperature problem is little more than a simple Schmidt Trigger.
All she needs is something to act as a detector for each end of the temperature curve.
9090406
... that could work. given it use something close to there tech and it run on 8 bit or 16 bit hardware that could well work!
9090346
I think someone would tell you there are emulators and virtual computers for that, but I don't know where to begin looking.
9090424
they work and i know of them but they can only work so far.
i wish i was loaded like bill gates or something then I would make a side business to keep old hardware alive to those who want to play and feel like the past for the day or so
9090286
We don't know if more teleports drains the batteries faster so I wouldn't suggest that. Obviously more distance will, but more jumps maybe a problem as well. There is also the problem that the Sparkle drive may take a certain amount of time to execute its teleport, and giving it the order to teleport again mid-teleport....could be bad.
I imagine that teleporting a second time before you have even arrived at your destination would cause all kinds of funky stuff to happen.
In fact we have strong evidence that jumping every cycle could be bad, as otherwise they originally wouldn't have done it every 4 cycles. The fact they think this is safe here, but not at home would lead one to think that it maybe related to the buildup of magic in the Sparkle Drive and its surrounds, kind of like a magical entropy. This unavailable magic needs to bleed off to prevent bad things from happening (just like an engine needs to stay cool) and they seem to be assuming that since we have no magic, thermodynamics say this waste magic will bleed off faster, (assuming it acts like heat)
But at 80x faster, their is a risk that this won't hold true, or at least not fully and that could be really bad, even if it doesn't effect the Sparkle Drive. Consider a red hot metal rod verses a room temperature metal rod placed in a metal freezer. Both rods will maintain structural integrity, they aren't hot enough to melt. But the red hot metal rod will clearly warm the room more, may actually case other things around it to melt, and have other such problems.
Now replace heat with "Magical Entropy." This...this seems very bad.
FORTUNATELY their is an easy fix.
This proves they can change the Jump frequency as well as distance. As such, while 9090273 is correct and this is a bad way to program, to our knowledge Starlight can compensate for how fast our computers are and thus cause the jumps to happen every 20 cycles.
9090464
The ponies may have programmed the drive to jump every 4 cycles because that's the maximum speed, the computer may need 4 instructions to produce the pulse (quite likely). IIRC a PC needs two instructions to output a square wave using the parallel port, but if you wanted to also do something else, you would have to slow the output down.
9090349
Why don't you use emulators?
And it just so happens that the way he pronounces "slumber party" means something not so different but entirely inappropriate?
9090534
they work and i know of them but they can only work so far.
9090424
9090534
Emulation is fine up until you run into programs designed to take advantage of bizarre quirks in the circuitry. Using the C64 example from earlier the processor's instruction set has dozens of combinations that weren't documented because they were never intended to be used but when you use them they do actually function in some way.
Emulators can implement these quirks but since they're undocumented you basically have to guess as to how they were implemented and that's where you start running into incompatibilities with the actual hardware.
9090407
RIP Old Man
Wouldn't these plants reach an equilibrium anyway? using that heating enchantment.
To much life -> To Hot -> Life slows down-> Temperature drops -> life speeds up again -> ... To equilibrium.
Given how short Dragonfly is on magic, which is generated by life, then maybe 70 days of 'slumber parties' (being much closer to the others while sleeping) will at least slow her symptoms down.
9090286
9090349
Actually, it's mainly good for a "Their computers are how fast?!" moment from the ponies.
Programming a PC to wait efficiently is trivial and an essential part of writing games that run at the same speed, no matter how fast a PC is. Heck, given that modern CPUs vary their clock speed to save power, it's essential just to get a game to run at a consistent speed.
Likewise, it's also an essential part of microcontroller programming, since not even all the Arduino-branded development boards have the same clock speed. (The AVR-based ones are standardized to 16MHz, but the ARM-based ones are up over 70MHz.)
Also, what happened to Friendship’s computer? Sure, fancy programming would let it run on earth-computers, but there is something to be said to using stuff that was purpose-built by the smartest minds of Equestria. (Hi Pinky)
9090794
Plot-twist: Friendship was using a 128k qbit quantum-computer. (Probably not, but with pinky, you never know.)
9090346
The Intel 8088 in the original IBM PC was a 16-bit CPU and MS-DOS was a 16-bit OS. There was a helluva lot more than just the CPU architecture that was swapped out when going from 8-bit to 16-bit. (Examples of 8-bit machines include the Commodore 64 and the Nintendo Entertainment System.)
There have only been three major transitions like what you describe:
You can probably just dual-boot your regular PC between 64-bit and 32-bit Windows. 32-bit drivers tend to still be available, Intel's planned target for retiring legacy BIOS support in products is 2020 and, even then, there are UEFI-based versions of 32-bit Windows. (Don't believe me about the degree to which PC hardware has retained compatibility? Watch this ridiculous "because I could".)
Aside from that, you could always run a 32-bit Windows in VirtualBox. That's less emulation and more virtualization so the only major limiting factor should be whether the virtual machine video drivers support a new enough version of DirectX for the game you want.
Finally, if you don't want to emulate a full Windows install...
I prefer to not get used to depending on hardware that'll only get more difficult to keep working over time, so I try to get my games running under some form of emulation or virtualization on top of an open-source software stack and commodity hardware as early as possible. (If the game is happy running under an emulator or virtual machine, then it's much easier to swap out the OS and hardware to keep up with the winds of change.)
9090424
See above.
9090428
Feel free to PM me about specific games. I'm highly technically skilled, good with Google Fu, and I collect games, so I probably have whatever's necessary to test instructions before sending them to you.
9090610
Look up "cycle-accurate emulation".
Accuracy takes power: one man’s 3GHz quest to build a perfect SNES emulator
TL;DR: There are people out there who tear apart old chips to see how they're put together, then pass the information on to people who emulate their exact behaviour under all possible states.
Now, admittedly, cycle-accurate emulation for something faster than a SNES will require a sufficiently fast FPGA, but we're starting to see FPGAs showing up in consumer products as A.I. accelerators. (There's also the MIST board (Also available from Dragonbox.de) which is purpose-built for using an FPGA to achieve accuracy and has quite a few cores available.
So how are you enjoying Amarillo, worlds largest truckstop?
9090705
Now that's thinking like a dynamic systems modeler :)
9090955 It's flat, it's poverty-stricken, the air is thin, and there's scarcely a tree deserving of the name.
And in other news, I don't think the Amarillo Tourist Bureau will be hiring me to write promotional materials any time soon.
9090835
can you make fort zombie run on windows 10?
9091183
I don't have Windows 10 or Fort Zombie, but the people in this thread have some promising advice.
From that link:
That said, please use private messaging for future communications in this vein. It's discourteous to take chapter comments off-topic for too long.
So, maybe i probably forgot, but why don't they just attach the power to the pony ship and launch, meeting Hermes well before the stressful drive to Schrepelli?
9091306 Cherry Berry indirectly asked the same question a few chapters ago, hence the "I'm not speaking to you" bit. The reason is, even if they hadn't lopped off the tail of the ship with all the old engine mountings, Amicitas is not spaceworthy. Its cooling systems and insulation are stripped off and in tatters. Part of its control system was destroyed in the crash. It can't possibly make a safe landing ever again, and its remaining airlock and docking port are incompatible with anything NASA or anyone else have. Once off of Mars, at best it would have a short trickle of power for its main engines and even less for the Sparkle Drive. Waiting for Hermes, and then using a ship specifically designed to dock with Hermes, is much safer.
9091306
The pony ship is a wreck, and they've cut big chunks of it off already. It's also a heavy wreck, so launching it was completely implausible before the invention of the magic repulsor launcher. And its non-Sparkle Drive propulsion tech (before they hacked that off) was magic-dependent and thus not great under current conditions.
It wouldn't have been great for their needs if the hull wasn't smashed up...and it was.
9091349
9091329
Duh!
Now I remember.
I read those chapters before bed, now it clicks.
No way at all to survive in space, duh!
Lol,
Thanks.
9091086
Pardner, I live here. You don't have to tell me
On the plus side, it doesn't rain much! Wait...
9090705
Depends on whether the feedback response there is just right to balance out the system without it crossing points of no return. And they probably can't test that at this point.
If they run a bit slower, say 196Khz, they can just use a screen full of 07x BEL calls, link to the piezo speaker and find the registers that set the frequency?
Lots of fun ways to get signals out. If you want full speed and variability, put a picture of bars of black and white on the screen if they still have VGA or equivalent and pull that power out. If you want speed, tap HDMI serial line at whatever clock speed?
From what I remember, the Sparkle Drive is like the Cos^2 behaviour of rotating polarisation. You can have thousands of 1/1000 rotation filter and if the quantum absorption of the material structure itself is negligable you can effectively get OAM freespace equivalent modulation in dense matter. For interacting with other energy fields maybe?
Cranking the temperature up would mean water would evapourate instead of transpire, meaning the walls would be dripping and transfering that much more excess heat outside, allowing for far more growth?
From the interwebs: "Alone on Mars, the Curiosity Rover sings itself Happy Birthday every year on August 5th." Please don't let this go unrecognized, Mr. Overstreet.
9091580
It actually only sang on it's first birthday. The NASA engineers are engineers first, and there's some costs and no scientific benefit to abusing the sample shaker that way.
9091745
You're just making it sound lonelier, you realize.
9091245
Hire an artist.
9090464
Actually, we do know.
Sparkle drive is based on my Subspace Displacement Drive concept from Arrow 18. (Its noted in the first chapter IIRC.)
In my concept, the energy required for a teleport goes up exponentially with the distance. This makes it more energy efficient to make many small jumps really fast, than a fewer number of large jumps. Thus, the faster you can cycle small jumps, the less energy you consume for a given transit.
9091965
Then I am now convinced that the only reason they could have triggered "a jump every four computer cycles" must be due to magical entropy.
If it was strain, (As in they were concerned it would put the engine under to much strain the first time) or fear of casting teleport in the middle of another teleport, as in either case, Starlight would not have speed up the jumps from once every 4 cycles to once a cycle.
As those issues won't change between universes.
In addition if more shorter jumps uses less energy, they MUST have had a reason to jump once every 4 cycles. If energy is the only factor, they would have set it to jump once a cycle instantly.
But the speed 'Magical Entropy' drains into the environment, if it acts like energy, is related to the amount of energy already there. (Hot metal rod in a freezer, vs hot metal rod in a Oven) As such you can definitely understand why Starlight feels it safe to cast the spell once a cycle now, due to lack of magic to inhibit it draining away.
But with our computers so much faster, not only is a buildup of magical entropy a risk, so is strain and casting a spell mid spellcast.
9088108 We can just hire some (insert any one of numerous politically incorrect foreign national terms here) to do the job, and it won't matter how many of em kick the bucket! More profits for Multinationalglobaltechnoconglomocorp, Ltd.!!
Co-CEO's Flim and Flam will surely give me a bonus and stock options!
9091965 In that case, the cycle rates achievable with human computers should be as mind blowing to the ponies as pony magic is to humans, and a "proper" Sparkle Drive rigged to a human computer system would kinda make everyone go "OMGWTFBBQ" after this is all over.
Let's do the math. The "regular" Sparkle Drive is stated to do 2 meter jumps at 250 kilohertz, one every four cycles on a 1 MHz pony computer. The modified Sparkle Drive does 0.5 meter jumps, and the ponies are hoping that the MAV computer or one of the astronaut laptops can manage a pulse rate in the hundreds of kilohertz, i.e. they are expecting human computers to be best-case on par with their own, worst-case a tenth as fast.
Human computers are in fact outlandishly faster than that. Even a low-end laptop is running at several thousand times< the raw clock speed, with actual computing capability vastly in excess of that due to highly optimized instruction sets and computation architectures. What the ponies are hoping we can deliver is literally. . . well, we put a computer like that in the Apollo capsules in 1966; the Apollo Guidance Computer was a 2MHz machine.
The Space Shuttle's Honeywell flight computers use an aerospace-grade hardened variant of the IBM PowerPC 750X chip at 500 MHz, and anything in the fictional Hermes and MAV is going to be faster still. Not as fast as a consumer rig, because aerospace hardening tends to focus on reliable old chipsets, but faster and with more memory and goodies.