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 Apollo guidance computer NASA 
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Joined: Tue Dec 11, 2012 8:03 am
Posts: 285
Location: California
Apollo guidance computer NASA
Part 1, 14:43 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7sMe52fEAc The need for a computer to process the sensor readings from the inertial navigation system is first mentioned at about 13:00
Part 2, 14:33 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKbbJrB9e4A
Part 3, 14:54 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r985on21qzk

As usual, the software-development process became a much greater consumer of time than anticipated, and unfortunately the stress was a cause of a lot of broken marriages. Interestingly, programmers were given a job with almost no description, so they made it up as they went. One of the developments was a multitasking system that assigned priorities to tasks, so that when the computer got overloaded and couldn't keep up with all of them, it purposely neglected lower-priority ones in order to keep more critical ones going without delays, something that the astronauts' lives depended on particularly when landing on the moon.

Edit: The video was removed on copyright grounds, but https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_75Rs7JhLA is nearly identical.
Edit: Darn-- they took that one down too, and whoever owns the copyright is not benefitting one bit by taking it down.
Edit, 1/2/18: Try this one: "Moon Machines EP3: Navigation Computer;" or, same thing at another YouTube link, "Navigation Computer"

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Last edited by Garth on Fri Aug 29, 2014 2:11 am, edited 2 times in total.



Mon Sep 23, 2013 10:23 pm WWW

Joined: Wed Jan 09, 2013 6:54 pm
Posts: 1799
See also an earlier post at viewtopic.php?f=22&t=85 (AGC: Apollo Guidance Computer)

And
See also "Weaving software into core memory by hand" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P12r8DKHsak and "Computer for Apollo" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIBhPsyYCiM


Cheers
Ed


Tue Sep 24, 2013 7:42 pm

Joined: Tue Dec 11, 2012 8:03 am
Posts: 285
Location: California
Ah yes, I had forgotten about that post. You've posted so many good ones like that.

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Tue Sep 24, 2013 7:53 pm WWW

Joined: Wed Jan 09, 2013 6:54 pm
Posts: 1799
Cheers! Several AGC posts and some other CPU-centric posts can be found on the Retro Computing community at g+ https://plus.google.com/communities/109 ... 8437647853

Edit: a specific search might help for this particular case, now years have passed and there are so many posts in the community.


Tue Sep 24, 2013 8:13 pm

Joined: Tue Dec 11, 2012 8:03 am
Posts: 285
Location: California
short video stressing more of how the minuscule amount of computing power was used so well on the Apollo missions:
How did the Apollo flight computers get men to the moon and back ?

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Wed Mar 15, 2017 3:10 am WWW

Joined: Wed Jan 09, 2013 6:54 pm
Posts: 1799
There's a nice hour-long video from the recent CCC which is all about the AGC. It's billed as the ultimate guide to the Apollo Guidance Computer, which has some pretty unusual instruction set features, like a store-with-skip-on-overflow-and-clear-it-too. The memory mapping is a delight too. Some memory locations act as do-something registers, and all registers also appear in the memory map, with interesting consequences.

"The Command Module and the Lunar Module each contained one AGC. First built in 1965 from 5600 integrated circuits, it was one of the first minicomputers, beating commercial machines like the PDP-8 in weight (32 kg) and power consumption (55 W). The Apollo program's size and weight limitations as well as the requirements for real-time guidance, navigation and control were pushing 1960s technologies to their limits. As a 15 bit one's complement big-endian accumulator machine with 36 kilo-words of ROM and 2 kilo-words of RAM, its design seems very foreign from today's perspective."

The talk, by Michael Steil and Christian Hessmann can be seen here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx7Lfh5SKUQ
and there's a writeup on Hackaday here.

The talk is in two parts: first the architecture, then the implementation. [Edit: nope, 5 parts...two software layers and then peripherals.]

Be sure to check the other AGC thread too, for some of Jeff's thoughts.


Tue Jan 02, 2018 6:43 pm

Joined: Tue Dec 11, 2012 8:03 am
Posts: 285
Location: California
home-made copy: http://www.instructables.com/id/Open-Ap ... uter-DSKY/ (has a video there too)

Quote:
Proud to be a Featured Instructable on 1/10/18. Please Vote for us and give us a Like!

While this is certainly not the first re-creation of the Iconic AGC (Apollo Guidance Computer) DSKY (Display/Keyboard) used in all Apollo missions of the 1960s, and you can expect even more to appear this year and next year because of the upcoming 50th anniversary of the first moon landing, we decided a few years ago to create our own version that would meet a minimum number of pre-requisites.

This project came about from the suggestion of one of our Open Enigma backer/contributor and we would like to acknowledge Rob for his suggestion/contribution. Thank You Rob!

Pre-requisites specifications:

- Has to be built with an Arduino and offer Open Source software.

- Needs to look and feel like the real thing. A faithful replica obviously WITHOUT Core Memory…

- Needs to emulate function/behavior of the Apollo flown units.

- Needs to use components that allows someone to build it as a kit.

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Fri Jan 12, 2018 11:05 pm WWW

Joined: Wed Jan 09, 2013 6:54 pm
Posts: 1799
Very nice! Bit of an easter egg in there too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89eyJrBGV6g
Image


Sat Jan 13, 2018 6:02 am
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