The black screen of BIOS borkage haunts Space Shuttle Discovery's new home Bork takes to the skies, kind of, with a Dell Optiplex disgracing itself at one of America's hallowed halls of aerospace. Today's display of unhelpfulness was captured by Register reader Will at the otherwise excellent Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia, part of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Sadly, …
Could also be that there used to be a keyboard attached and the IT guy knew to go around after a power outage and hit F1 so the thing would boot, while muttering "I gotta remember to get a 2032 the next time I'm at Walmart. Or is it a 2025? I gotta remember to open the case and look after the next power outage..." and around and around it goes...
I've been there three times, and could happily visit more often. I was a bit annoyed once when I asked a tour guide if there was anything about Sir George Cayley there and he said he didn't know who that was (there is a small bit about him on the smaller version on the Mall, FWIW)
There is an observation tower that you can visit that gives great views of planes landing and taking off from Dulles as well.
Often in signage with those older displays we simply put the computer in a rack somewhere , use a vga to cat5 --> cat5 vga pair of extenders.
Can be anywhere within 100m .. Same applies to HDMI , for simple signage though the units are small enough so they're at the back of the tv mounted somewhere handy.
No need to tear apart a computer .. extenders are probably what went on here.
I took the same picture on Monday but never got around to sending it in - nicely done! For what it's worth the computer is in the pedestal below the screen, there's a mesh through which it is partly visible in one of my photos. Observation tower is closed for the moment, but it was great to see the Apollo 11 control module outside the restoration bay!
I visited there shortly after it opened, and guided myself. At the time, the tour guides were...questionably informed. I did overhear errors. If I could get one request filled, I'd ask for fake exhaust nozzles and intakes to be added to the jets on display - they all have the engines out, of course - many of them are displayed separately (and for the suspended aircraft, the weight savings is significant) but the illusion of these being airplanes and not just props is broken since they are obviously incomplete.
The Discovery display was a work very much barely started when I was there, unfortunately. I'll make it back one of these days.
Nice to see the Langley Aerodrome back on display - minus the false claims. Its a nice-looking craft, even if it never did fly.
I found myself mostly distracted at all the aerodynamic goodness going on in the background.
I can make out:
B-29 (obvs)
Grob G102 (also obvious)
TG-1 (airforce training glider, blue with yellow wing, hanging center pic)
Hawker Hurricane (below the tail of the B-29)
Sopwith Camel (just aft behind the tail of the B-29)
Westland Lysander (hanging, below the G102)
Northrop flying wing (Yellow, left of the console)
Cessna 172? (center left, red tail, white Cessna text on the tail)
The rest eludes me.
A quick google also showed me what the Japanese aircraft at the bottom are:
Nakajima J1N1-S Gekko
Aichi M6A1 Seiran
Nakajima Kikka (loosely speaking a Japanese interpretation of the Me-262)
https://acesflyinghigh.wordpress.com/2013/09/30/steven-f-udvar-hazy-centre-aviation-history/
The framing is unfortunate, the Columbia is in the area you can just see into on the left top of the picture, a few feet to the left and you'd be able to see it. There's an SR71 on the floor just off the left side of frame too.
EDIT: I'm looking at it the wrong way, that's the main entry on the left, the shuttle would be in a similar area over your left shoulder.
Sorry guys, I tried to get as many exhibits framed with the bork as I could but the location of that display wasn't explicitly attached to anything in particular, unlike all the other working displays. Perhaps that would explain why its repair wasn't a priority.
Tech hat on - the BIOS version dates to 8 April 2010 so somebody was maintaining it. I assume the battery has been replaced periodically but, possibly due to COVID, not recently enough.
Geek hat on - the museum is awesome. Totally different feel versus the Air and Space Museum downtown. A must see.
At the moment you need to reserve a free ticket (to control crowds). As COVID restrictions are lifted, aside from the exhibits, there is the previously mentioned observation tower and an IMAX theater..
BTW, as far as the jet engines, like the planes, they are fully restored and are displayed separately so they can be fully viewed.
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