A bit off Topic - The computer of Apollo.

[BillO]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndvmFlg1WmE

We've come a long way in 53 years. Our beloved 6502 came about less than 1/5 of the way along that journey ... and it's still here.

[dourish]

There's a tremendous set of videos from a group of folk who have been restoring an original Apollo Guidance Computer over the past couple of months -- amazing work.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... _x7-Ut_-w7

[MichaelM]

BillO:

So cool. I really enjoyed the video. Thanks for posting the link.

[BigEd]

Yes, thanks BillO. Authentic monochrome calm factual intelligent documentary - just the way I like it!
MIT Science Reporter—"Computer for Apollo" (1965) [30mins]

And thanks dourish for the CuriousMarc playlist:
Apollo Guidance Computer Restoration [27 videos]

There's a [rapid-fire] CCC talk on the workings of the AGC:
34C3 - The Ultimate Apollo Guidance Computer Talk [60mins]

And Ken Shirriff has written up several of his very detailed articles:
http://www.righto.com/search/label/Apollo

The AGC gets a few mentions on the Retro Computing Forum (do visit and have a look around):
https://retrocomputingforum.com/tags/agc

And a few over at anycpu (do visit and have a look around):
[search for Apollo or AGC on anycpu forums]

[mstram]

I've been "binging" on this Apollo stuff for the last few days.

That "34c3" video, is probably the best "cpu-computer-os" video I've ever seen. Great graphics and very "meaty" ("rapid fire" for sure ! (Heh, youtube slowdown 75% helps )

Covers everything from the hardware construction / design to the machine code , virtual-machine interpreter, system ("O.S"), and finally the mission software.

A great article on Apollo 14 by by Frank O'Brien, the author of the The Apollo Guidance Computer: Architecture and Operation

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/01 ... apollo-14/

Tons and tons of docs / code listings etc here :

http://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/index.html

Nice VirtualBox package of the AGC :

http://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/download.html

There's a great addon (NASSP) for the Orbiter space simulator :

https://nassp.space/index.php/Main_Page

[mstram]

Interesting that only 3-input-NOR gates were used to build the cpu.

The most efficient way ?

** NOR gates **

[BigEd]

Perhaps the most economic and reliable way - the Cray-1 was also built with a very small diversity of integrated circuits. It means you can qualify and characterise a small number of chip designs, and manufacture in relative volume.

[pjdennis]

mstram wrote:

Frank O'Brien, the author of the The Apollo Guidance Computer: Architecture and Operation

That book is a great read for anyone interested in the details of the hardware and software, and how they were developed, and used during the lunar missions.