In today’s time, what is the lifetime of our gadgets? On average, it is found that people change their smartphone in a span of 2 years as most smartphones slow down or stop functioning altogether. Now, surprise, surprise! Remember the Perseverance launched by Nasa? It uses a processor which is more than 2 decades old.
NASA’s perseverance –
In 2018, NASA sent its “perseverance” on the surface of the moon. The processor used for this model was the same processor used in the iMac G3. In case you are wondering about the iMac G3, well, it is the same “all colorful and hi-tech” desktop that saved Apple during its downfall and turned it into the company it is today.
Full-fledged Adult –
The New Scientist reports state that NASA’s latest rover features the PowerPC 750 CPU, which will be about 23 years old now.
As the name suggests, the device has a single-core processor and has approximately six million transistors. The clock speed is recorded up to 233 megahertz. The speed of the processor is what made it get chosen by NASA.
If we run a comparison between the iMac G3 and Apple’s latest processors like the M1 chipset, which has 16 billion transistors and a clock speed of about 3.2 gigahertz, the former has a lot less speed than the latter.
Why iMac G3 Processor?
Talking about why NASA has always chosen a well-equipped processor is because sending a rover 38.6 million miles away is no child Play. And in order to perform such a heavy-duty task, a very reliable processor is a necessity. In the present model “perseverance,” RAD750, a variant of PowerPC 750, is installed. The feature enables the rover to withstand 200,000 – 1,000,000 RADs and a temperature of -55 to 125 degrees celsius. RAD750 is reportedly revolving around100 satellites around the earth and is still working just fine.
Apple has always equipped itself with next-generation technologies that have proved to be very handy for space ventures more than a few times.
Apple is also working on a self-driving electric car, but it is yet to be known who the partner will be. Here are some of the possible allies for Apple’s this venture.
