New F1 ECU's .... Why Microsoft?

[Jims5543]

Someone want to explain this to me. Why did companies like Magneti Marelli and Motec get passed over and Microsoft get contracted to design the "Spec ECU" for the 2008 F1 season?

When I think Automotive and Racing ECU the last thing that comes to mind is Microsoft.


I can see it now, look Peter! The McLaren has pulled off with an apparent system crash. Oh no! The HP sponsored BMW seems to have a virus!

The Ferrari retired with a O/S malfunction. Hopefully Microsoft can fix this problem with a service pack release before next week.


Imagine if they hired Apple to design an ECU.


There are so many companies already in this game with tons of experience why use a company with no experience at all?

Or am I missing something?

[Scott R]

Motec uses a 2.4 variant linux kernel, same as Megasquirt btw. You can crash a linux kernel same as you can with windows, bad hardware mostly. I've been doing diags on my MSI brain since my failed dyno and it's had several kernel panics in the last few weeks, I don't suppose any OS is perfect for this.

[Jims5543]

I have a Motec M4 in my RX7 it has worked flawlessly. My friends use Wolf3D systems (supposedly a variant of Motec as well) and all of them are more than happy with their systems working flawlessly as well.

My Motec has seen nothing but abuse, located on the floor board right above the exhaust pipe it gets pretty hot, the hardware and software has seen countless hours on the track and never once burped.

I can only imagine Magneti Marelli is an even more stout system, being as its in F1 cars, Indy cars and other race cars, along with Motec being the ECU of choice for all sorts of race teams.

Is F1 going to have to deal with a Microsoft learning curve?

It seems nuts to me.

[Scott R]

On the other hand, Microsoft is famous for making things easier for the end user, so maybe there will be a benefit there.

[Aerkuld]

It would make sense if Microsoft made one for NASCAR (if they needed one) for one reason -







More Crashes!

[Scott R]

The major limiting factor is that on the linux based management systems they use kexec to load dynamic kernel changes, so no downtime per say. With a Microsoft solution any type of update like that would require a reboot of your ECU.

[masraum]

Probably another ploy to level the playing field. Each car is almost guaranteed to need random reboots throughout each race which will be much harder to figure into the race strategy. They'll also need another 100 pounds of memory and harddrive space to run the new ECUs which will further slow things down.

[stomachmonkey]

Marketing $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$'s

[Jims5543]

Originally Posted by masraum

Probably another ploy to level the playing field. Each car is almost guaranteed to need random reboots throughout each race which will be much harder to figure into the race strategy. They'll also need another 100 pounds of memory and harddrive space to run the new ECUs which will further slow things down.

Well, technically, yes its about removing Traction Control next year. A single ECU will be used to ensure no one tries to hide Traction Control in their car next year.

All the technical info aside the root question is, Why go with a untried entity when so many veterans are out there already?

[MFAFF]

Because so many of the established players WILL have allegencies beyond F1; in being prefered suppliers to the road car business of the 'majors'.
MS does not and to be honest MS possibly has nothing to win/lose by being in F1...it has no (obvious) links to say FIAT or BMW or Mercedes etc etc...

If F1 is too much of a pain or difficult MS can walk with almost no repercussions to their core business.

They might not be the 'best' technically, and from what you guys are saying this would appear to be true, but they may be the 'best' politcally.

Or they paid more than anyone else to be top dog...

[red-beard]

Imagine while driving your car, getting the blue screen of death.

It reminds me of the joke about the Electrical Engineer, the Mechnical Engineer and the IT Manager who have a car that won't start.

The Electrical Engineer suggests they check the battery and starter

The Mechanical Engineer suggests they check the fuel supply and cooling system

The IT manager suggests they all get out of the car, close all of the doors, get back in, and try to start it again.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

I rebooted my Linux machine for the first time in several months yesterday (because I added some RAM). My Windows (XP Pro) machine gets finkcky if I don't reboot it at least 3-4 X a week (normally I just put it in "standby" mode, but I'm talking about honest-to-goodness cold boots).

Windows HAS gotten a lot better and is a far cry from the days of Windows 3.1 or (shudder) 95 or (double-shudder) 98. It's better but still far from the OS Linux is, IMHO.

[red-beard]

Who remembers good old DOS? We never had to reboot machines under DOS. Of course, my memory may be fading...

[Joeaksa]

Originally Posted by red-beard

Imagine while driving your car, getting the blue screen of death.

It reminds me of the joke about the Electrical Engineer, the Mechnical Engineer and the IT Manager who have a car that won't start.

The Electrical Engineer suggests they check the battery and starter

The Mechanical Engineer suggests they check the fuel supply and cooling system

The IT manager suggests they all get out of the car, close all of the doors, get back in, and try to start it again.

Well guys, here is the take on it from the aviation industry....



Isnt this just what you want to see when you are about 10 miles out from the airport, low level and the weather is about 200 feet overcast with clouds and visability of about 1/2 of a mile and intermittent freezing fog, which is typical in Europe in Winter?

I picked up a brand new airplane at the factory back in July. Within 4 flights we had the BSOD (blue screen of death) on an aux display in the cockpit. Yep, it was running a version of Windows.

Really hope that its been debugged but if its running Windows it will be debugged in the field and not in the lab if its anything like their computer OS.

[Jims5543]

Originally Posted by MFAFF

Because so many of the established players WILL have allegencies beyond F1; in being prefered suppliers to the road car business of the 'majors'.
MS does not and to be honest MS possibly has nothing to win/lose by being in F1...it has no (obvious) links to say FIAT or BMW or Mercedes etc etc...

If F1 is too much of a pain or difficult MS can walk with almost no repercussions to their core business.

They might not be the 'best' technically, and from what you guys are saying this would appear to be true, but they may be the 'best' politcally.

Or they paid more than anyone else to be top dog...

Very valid points. Correct as far as I know MS has no ties to motorsports at all. I can totally understand how a certain supplier might have an allegiance to a certain marque.

But, after reading Joe's post, I can only foresee many problems next year in F1 with system crashes.

Is MS approaches this anything like they do their PC systems and apparently their Aerospace applications, we will see a lot of cars dropping out of races. We used to hear of hydraulic failures taking out cars next year we will hear about ECU failures.


Its going to a be a long winter testing this year.

[onewhippedpuppy]

Originally Posted by Joeaksa

Well guys, here is the take on it from the aviation industry....



Isnt this just what you want to see when you are about 10 miles out from the airport, low level and the weather is about 200 feet overcast with clouds and visability of about 1/2 of a mile and intermittent freezing fog, which is typical in Europe in Winter?

I picked up a brand new airplane at the factory back in July. Within 4 flights we had the BSOD (blue screen of death) on an aux display in the cockpit. Yep, it was running a version of Windows.

Really hope that its been debugged but if its running Windows it will be debugged in the field and not in the lab if its anything like their computer OS.

Clever photoshop.

Joe, what aircraft were you in with a Microsoft OS? Just curious, I've never heard of an avionics manufacturer using Microsoft.

[Joeaksa]

Originally Posted by onewhippedpuppy

Clever photoshop.

Joe, what aircraft were you in with a Microsoft OS? Just curious, I've never heard of an avionics manufacturer using Microsoft.

Matt,

This is on a brand new Challenger 605. Less than 10 of them out in the field so far and very complicated. They use a version of the MS OS for the aux control system on the copilots side of the cockpit. I pick up another new bird in 10 days and head to Berlin then Moscow. Field testing it in frigging Russia will be a very interesting bit of work!



This is a photo of the cockpit and on the very right hand of the photo you can barely see the corner of another screen. Its mounted on the copilots side of the cockpit and controls everything from the heating, ALL lighting, ALL power in the ship aft of the cockpit and so on.

It froze up several times and we lost all control over the heat. On a 6-9 hour flight this is very important and we had to over-ride the locked up system and manually do everything.

Officially its not the factory who made the jet who uses MS, but the control system for almost everything other than the flight instruments is outsourced to Collins, the American avionics maker. They evidently used some of the MS OS in their system. Had to chuckle a bit as we were all over the place, from London to Paris, on to Egypt, Sierra Leone, Zambia then to Johannesburg in the first 2 weeks with the jet. Bombardier, Collins and all their field reps were following us around the world trying to keep the aux systems up and working. Felt sorry for the guys as the system is brand new and no one knew a lot about it.

THIS is what is going to happen with the MS "black box" in the F1 cars next year. They will be doing a lot of test drives over the winter and the first couple of races will be very interesting. Cannot wait to hear the protests start flying when something goes wrong and everyone tries to blame it on MS/McLaren!