{"id":26572,"date":"2020-04-10T11:32:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-10T15:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/?p=26572"},"modified":"2020-04-09T22:41:42","modified_gmt":"2020-04-10T02:41:42","slug":"the-boeing-737-max-uses-16-bit-computers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2020\/04\/10\/the-boeing-737-max-uses-16-bit-computers\/","title":{"rendered":"The Boeing 737 MAX uses 16-bit computers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2020\/4\/9\/21197162\/boeing-737-max-software-hardware-computer-fcc-crash\">&#8220;The Ancient Computers in the Boeing 737 Max are Holding Up a Fix&#8221;<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>A brand-new Boeing 737 Max gets built in just nine days. In that time, a team of 12,000 people turns a loose assemblage of parts into a finished $120 million airplane with some truly cutting-edge technology: winglets based on ones designed by NASA, engines that feature the world\u2019s first one-piece carbon-fiber fan blades, and computers with the same processing power as, uh, the Super Nintendo.<\/p><p>The Max has been grounded since March 2019, after some badly written software caused two crashes that killed 346 people. And while Boeing has received plenty of scrutiny for its bad code, it\u2019s the Max\u2019s computing power \u2014 or lack thereof \u2014 that has kept it on the ground since then.<\/p><p>Boeing took [the ethos of proven tech] to heart for the Max, sticking with the Collins Aerospace FCC-730 series, first built in 1996. Each computer features a pair of single-core, <strong>16-bit processors<\/strong> that run independently of each other, which reduces computing power but also keeps a faulty processor from taking down the entire system.<\/p><p>Even by late-\u201990s consumer tech standards, the FCC-730s were behind the curve. By the time they went to market, Nintendo had already replaced its 16-bit SNES console with the Nintendo 64 (the first game console to use \u2014 you guessed it \u2014 a 64-bit CPU), and IBM had created the world\u2019s first dual-core processor.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>In other words, your washing machine or dishwasher from 2006 may have a more powerful processor than the B737 MAX (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.fujitsu.com\/us\/about\/resources\/news\/press-releases\/2006\/fma-20060404-1.html\">&#8220;Fujitsu Introduces New 32-bit Microcontroller for Home Appliances&#8221;<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;The Ancient Computers in the Boeing 737 Max are Holding Up a Fix&#8221;: A brand-new Boeing 737 Max gets built in just nine days. In that time, a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-engineering","category-flying"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Boeing 737 MAX uses 16-bit computers - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2020\/04\/10\/the-boeing-737-max-uses-16-bit-computers\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Boeing 737 MAX uses 16-bit computers - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&#8220;The Ancient Computers in the Boeing 737 Max are Holding Up a Fix&#8221;: A brand-new Boeing 737 Max gets built in just nine days. 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