Apollo Guidance computer programmed...

[zeitghost]

by a long haired beatnik...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8152907.stm

23 years old...

We've all got to start somewhere, I suppose...

Mum... knit me some memory mum... mum...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/h...037/html/1.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8148730.stm

However, the entire computer was not so hi-tech. In order to make sure that the software was robust it was "woven" into so-called "rope core memories".

These used copper wires threaded through or around tiny magnetic cores to produce the ones and zeroes of binary code at the heart of the software.

Pass the copper wire through the core and the computer read it as a one. Pass it around and it was read as a zero.

"Once you get it wired it's not going to change without breaking those wires," said Mr Hall.

The rope core memories would become know as "LOL memory" after the "little old ladies" who knitted together the software at a factory just outside Boston.

These ladies would sit in pairs with a memory unit between them, threading metres and metres of slender copper wires through and around the cores.

"It's an extremely time-consuming process and it meant that the programs had to be finished and fully tested months in advance," said Mr Eyles.

It's only now with the perspective of 40 years that Apollo stands out as a unique event, probably never to be repeated in my lifetime

Don Eyles
"But it is extremely robust - that information probably still exists despite being left on the Moon."

[DimPrawn]

He wasn't worried, he knew it was all a fake really.

[chef]

easy, just follow these instructions and build your own apollo spacecraft computer

[bogeyman]

easy, just follow these instructions and build your own apollo spacecraft computer

Well, that's possible now, because a geek named John Pultorak created a working reproduction of the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC), wrote a complete manual that will allow you to build your own Apollo flight computer clone and released it in the puclic domain. Well, I think that's just incredible!

sad

Nah! Quite an acheivement really but I couldn't resist.

[RichardCranium]

The rope core memories would become know as "LOL memory" after the "little old ladies" who knitted together the software at a factory just outside Boston.

I think that is bollocks.

Core memory was 'core', not 'rope core memory'. As for 'LOL memory': bollocks.

[Churchill]

I think that is bollocks.

Core memory was 'core', not 'rope core memory'. As for 'LOL memory': bollocks.

I suggest you read the original article and the relevant programming manuals.

[Zippy]

Hands up if you'd have got on Apollo 11 knowing your mum had done the wiring ....

[BlasterBates]

apparently the computer crashed when they were flying over the moon, so they told Neil Armstrong to switch it off and they landed manually.

[Zippy]

Anyone?

<tumbleweed>

[zeitghost]

apparently the computer crashed due to a memory leak when they were flying over the moon, so they told Neil Armstrong to switch it off and they landed manually.

Nope.

It indicated an overload condition... and dumped tasks, you can't fly the LEM manually.

The problem was caused by the rendezvous radar being left on...