NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover is powered by the same G3 processor that powered the original iMac

A processor familiar to longtime Mac users is taking NASA’s newest rover where no man has gone before.

Joanna Nelius, writing at Gizmodo:

NewScientist reports that the Perseverance rover is powered by a PowerPC 750 processor, which was used in Apple’s original 1998 iMac G3—you remember, the iconic, colorful, see-through desktop.

And:

However, there’s a major difference between the iMac’s CPU and the one inside the Perseverance rover. BAE Systems manufactures the radiation-hardened version of the PowerPC 750, dubbed RAD750, which can withstand 200,000 to 1,000,000 Rads and temperatures between −55 and 125 degrees Celsius (-67 and 257 degrees Fahrenheit).

That level of radiation protection is necessary in the hostile environment of Mars since the Martian atmosphere doesn’t protect against nearly as much radiation as Earth’s does. But why use such an old processor in a brand new state-of-the-art interplanetary exploration vehicle? NASA just considers it reliable, a trait you need in a piece of equipment you can’t service if something goes wrong.

When I bought my first Mac in 2000 (an iBook Special Edition) it was also powered by a PowerPC 750. It’s cool to see a piece of tech that is so meaningful to me find a way to still serve an important function.