Stefano Paris writes to us about his experience with the Macs running NASAs new Helios solar-powered plane.

Stefano Paris writes to us about his experience with the Macs running NASAs new Helios solar-powered plane.

I’ve been a die hard mac evangelist since my very first one in 1984 (128k Mac). Had (still have) an Apple IIe before that. Been through dozens of Macs through the years. My life is Powered by Macintosh.

The third link on the Web page is a scan of a 1987 Apple Ad showing AeroVironment’s use of the Macintosh in the development and racing of the GM Sunraycer, a solar powered car my division (DDC = Design Development Center) built in seven months for GM. Sunraycer allowed GM to showcase the Solar Cell technology they acquired from their purchase of Hughes back then by winning the 1987 Solar Race across Australia.

My coworker Graham was the genius behind using Macs for displaying and saving all the real time telemetry data. They traveled across Australia in a motorhome with Macintosh Pluses wirelessly linked to Sunraycer. Graham has been a Mac evangelist since first seeing and buying a Mac 128k in 1984.

The Solar Plane projects (first Pathfinder, then Centurion, now Helios Prototype) utilize Macintoshes on a much larger scale.

Macintosh, The Power to Think Different!

Stefano Paris


For more background on this cool unmanned plane check out these previous Go2Mac.com articles:


• Macintosh is the Brain for NASA ISP Plane [Updated] 15 Aug 2001
• NASA Helios Wind Gust Video 16 Aug 2001