Operating System on 747

[Azndude51]

Well, I just came back from China where I was attending my grandmother's funeral. When I was leaving the 747 that I was riding, I noticed that all the TV monitors and projectors were displaying a black screen with white words, then I noticed a little penguin, so appearently, they use Linux on the video players on planes.

 

[KoolDrew]

747?

 

[stash]

Boeing 747

 

[montag451]

Thank christ/buddha/mohammed/moses that 747's don't use Microsoft

 

[stash]

Boeing is one of Microsoft's largest customers.

 

[Sunner]

I hope they use some in house software designed explicitly for the purpose.
Somehow I'd trust that over Windows or Linux.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: STaSh
Boeing is one of Microsoft's largest customers.

Boeing is one of the largest customers for all sorts of people...

Mostly I'd bet that it's embedded-style software designed to work with a paticular componate and all of it is networked together in the airplane. Lots of different componates talking to each other.. That sort of thing.

Probably won't have any normal OS stuff like what we'd use unless some techs use diagnosis software on laptops or something like that.

Also keep in mind that the 747 has been around since the late 60's with many of the machines in the air today have been in operation for many many years... There is probably going to be software dating from the early 80's on many machines...

 

[Nothinman]

I hope they use some in house software designed explicitly for the purpose.

Having dealt with internal developers where I work, I really would not trust my life to their software.

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

I hope they use some in house software designed explicitly for the purpose.

Having dealt with internal developers where I work, I really would not trust my life to their software.

Not that I'm in the know, but I'd hope that Boeing(and Airbus, Lockheed, etc) have quite an extensive QA process, compared to any "general purpose" company out there.

 

[drag]

There is some weird things.

for instance in the software used on Boeing 777's as much as 60% was written in Ada because Boeing engineers liked it and dictated that as thelanguage for much of the software.. They use a combination of commercial-of-the-shelf software and custom software built under contract.
http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/crosstalk/1996/01/Boein777.asp

That's a bit old, though. 1996

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: drag
There is some weird things.

for instance in the software used on Boeing 777's as much as 60% was written in Ada because Boeing engineers liked it and dictated that as thelanguage for much of the software.. They use a combination of commercial-of-the-shelf software and custom software built under contract.
http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/crosstalk/1996/01/Boein777.asp

That's a bit old, though. 1996

I'm sure Boeing hires plenty of ex-military programmers.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Sunner

Originally posted by: Nothinman

I hope they use some in house software designed explicitly for the purpose.

Having dealt with internal developers where I work, I really would not trust my life to their software.

Not that I'm in the know, but I'd hope that Boeing(and Airbus, Lockheed, etc) have quite an extensive QA process, compared to any "general purpose" company out there.

Airbus scares me.

 

[Nothinman]

Airbus scares me.

Aye.

 

[uOpt]

A lot of airline software was been written once, when the airlines were early adaptors of these computers thingies, in the 50ies and 60ties and has not been replaced since.

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Airbus scares me.

Aye.

I wouldn't know the difference between an Airbus and a Boeing anyway, can't say I care either 🙂

 

[stash]

I bet if you saw an A380 and a 747-400 next to each other, you would be able to tell a difference 😉