What kind of computer does a space shuttle have?
Those 8086 chips are needed for ground support equipment (GSE), not flight hardware! Flight hardware needs a traceable so it is never scavenged from ebay. GSE is not so picky. Besides, we have plenty of flight hardware spares already in storage. The orbiter’s computers are called General Purpose Computers, or GPC’s: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/refe… The article begins by describing the original computers, which have already been replaced. As I recall, they are roughly equivalent to a 386 computer, which seems very primitive now but it was a huge improvement over the original. The orbiter never used floppy disks for storage. High-rate data was stored on tape, in fact, it is still stored on tape. The tape is used mostly to record strain gauge measurements within the vehicle structure. These are needed to show that the structure was not overstressed during re-entry. It
