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Author Topic: The Apollo 1969 Guidance Computer  (Read 1455 times)

burakkucat

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The Apollo 1969 Guidance Computer
« on: February 06, 2020, 08:25:06 PM »

A description of events from over fifty years ago.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1J2RMorJXM[/youtube]


(The video has been timed at 1 hour 21 minutes and 22 seconds.)
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g3uiss

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Re: The Apollo 1969 Guidance Computer
« Reply #1 on: February 06, 2020, 11:48:42 PM »

Excellent. Also worth mentioning if you haven’t been to the national computer museum it’s well worth a visit. Loads of great stuff, including PDP11’s which is where it started for me.
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licquorice

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Re: The Apollo 1969 Guidance Computer
« Reply #2 on: February 07, 2020, 10:00:12 AM »

Yep, they have even got one of the first modems I ever used a massive 300baud!!
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sevenlayermuddle

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Re: The Apollo 1969 Guidance Computer
« Reply #3 on: February 07, 2020, 11:37:18 AM »

Apols if this is of only peripheral relevance as I have not watched the video...

....But, a while ago, I took an electric toothbrush apart.  Inside, I found a PIC Microcontroller that was presumably used to control things such as inductive charging, low battery indicator, and motor speed.  And also to provide gimmick functions such as the two minute timer that 'pulsed' when it thought my teeth were clean enough. 

I would hazard a guess that the PIC in my toothbrush probably had orders of magnitude more processing power and memory, compared with the Apollo guidance computers.  I can't quite decide whether that 'proves' that it should be relatively easy to land a toothbrush on the moon?  ::)
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tubaman

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Re: The Apollo 1969 Guidance Computer
« Reply #4 on: February 07, 2020, 11:59:01 AM »

Yep, they have even got one of the first modems I ever used a massive 300baud!!

That looks like a GPO Modem 2 - I played with these a lot during my apprenticeship in the '80s. They were old then, but were good for fault finding practice. All discrete components with not an IC in sight if I remember correctly.
Those were the days!
 ;D
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displaced

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Re: The Apollo 1969 Guidance Computer
« Reply #5 on: February 07, 2020, 01:25:02 PM »

arstechnica have some excellent coverage of space-y stuff. Here’s a recent (and one of many) articles about the AGC:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/01/a-deep-dive-into-the-apollo-guidance-computer-and-the-hack-that-saved-apollo-14/

With so much ‘general purpose’ hardware these days, it’s quite incredible to see how powerful early purpose-built computers were.
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burakkucat

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Re: The Apollo 1969 Guidance Computer
« Reply #6 on: February 07, 2020, 05:41:44 PM »

Yep, they have even got one of the first modems I ever used a massive 300baud!!

There is something very comforting about the 62-type equipment practice. The black controls, test points and fuse-holders, etc, all contrast nicely with the light-straw coloured panels.
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licquorice

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Re: The Apollo 1969 Guidance Computer
« Reply #7 on: February 07, 2020, 05:46:20 PM »

Absolutely, and very sturdy unlike the very flimsy TEP1E stuff!!
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Weaver

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Re: The Apollo 1969 Guidance Computer
« Reply #8 on: February 11, 2020, 02:00:26 AM »

Before my time almost. I remember getting up in the night wrapped in blanket by mother (bless her, greatly missed) to watch tv of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Blew my mind completely. Then it was I decided to go off and study Physics. I was already mad on astronomy.
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