ENHANCED BI-DIRECTIONAL COMMUNICATION WITH LOW-COST PAYLOADS

EXPERIENCE IN DEVELOPING PAYLOAD CONTROLLERS FOR USE BY SPACE SHUTTLE ORBITER CREWS HAS UNVEILED THE CONTINUING AND GROWING PROBLEMS OF NON-STANDARDIZED PROTOCOL AND THE DISTRESS OF CREWS REQUIRED TO LEARN NEW KEYBOARDS AND OPERATING SYSTEMS WITH "EVERY NEW EXPERIMENT". THE KEY TO SOLVING THIS PROBLEM IS TO DEVELOP A HIGH LEVEL LANGUAGE FAMILIAR TO THE ORBITER CREWS INCLUDING SUCH FEATURES AS: (1) STANDARD KEYBOARD WITH SPECIAL PURPOSE OVERLAY CAPABILITY. (2) STANDARDIZED NOMENCLATURE. (3) FULL FIELD DISPLAYS WITH DAYLIGHT AND DARK VISIBILITY. THE DESIGN APPROACH INCLUDES CUE CARDS, MENUS, AND NMEMONIC DICTIONARY AIDS FOR TRAINING AND WILL ALLOW FOR EASY EXPANSION INTO NEW APPLICATIONS BY ELECTRICALLY PROGRAMMABLE E PROMS. A GREATLY EXPANDED COMPUTING STORAGE AND DATA RETRIEVAL CAPABILITY WILL BE MADE POSSIBLE THROUGH THE USE OF NEW LOW POWER CMOS, MICROPROCESSORS, EE PROMS AND RAM.