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Interesting.

The Israeli Iron Dome project did it differently. From the references in the Wikipedia article I found this gem:

"As scientists we dream to sit in our offices without limitations of time and budget and to develop perfect products. But the reality is different, and these constraints forced us to think hard. There are parts in the system forty times cheaper than the parts we buy normally. I can give you even a scoop—it contains the world's only missile components from Toys R Us... One day I brought to work my sons toy car. We Passed it among us, and we saw that there were actually components suitable for us. More than that I can not tell.".




It’s very common to use commercial off the shelf (COTS) components in military gear. It’s actually preferable to use COTS than building something new. That doesn’t necessarily make the overall end item modular or serviceable by anyone except the OEM.


A decade ago the Air Force had a supercomputer made up of 1,760 Sony PlayStation 3s. They claimed using PS3s saved them $2 million.

https://phys.org/news/2010-12-air-playstation-3s-supercomput...

They also have been experimenting with using video game controllers to control military equipment

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/military-contracto...




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