Jim K Global Moderator Posted July 10, 2016 Global Moderator Share Posted July 10, 2016 It is kinda entertaining. For example ... in BURN_BABY_BURN--MASTER_IGNITION_ROUTINE.s line 446 CA Z # ASSASSINATE CLOKTASK whereas other similar lines just say "kill clocktask" lines 796-801 TC NOULLAGE # TURN OFF ULLAGE ... TC KILLTASK # DON'T LET IT COME ON, EITHER ... CADR ULLGTASK TC PHASCHNG # NOT EVEN IF THERE'S A RESTART. OCT 1 CA Z # KILL CLOKTASK lines 904-925 (deleted all but lines 904 and 925) P40AUTO TC MAKECADR # HELLO THERE. TC BANKJUMP # GOODBYE. COME AGAIN SOON. In THE_LUNAR_LANDING.s lines 245-255 CAF CODE500 # ASTRONAUT: PLEASE CRANK THE TC BANKCALL # SILLY THING AROUND CADR GOPERF1 TCF GOTOP00H # TERMINATE TCF P63SPOT3 # PROCEED SEE IF HE'S LYING P63SPOT4 TC BANKCALL # ENTER INITIALIZE LANDING RADAR CADR SETPOS1 TC POSTJUMP # OFF TO SEE THE WIZARD ... CADR BURNBABY line 317 CAF V06N43* # ASTRONAUT: NOW LOOK WHERE TO ENDED UP In LUNAR_LANDING_GUIDANCE_EQUATIONS.s lines 176-181 CAF TWO # WCHPHASE = 2 ---> VERTICAL: P65,P66,P67 TS WCHPHOLD TS WCHPHASE TC BANKCALL # TEMPORARY, I HOPE HOPE HOPE CADR STOPRATE # TEMPORARY, I HOPE HOPE HOPE TC DOWNFLAG # PERMIT X-AXIS OVERRIDE also line 130 .... which I'm assuming is a Shakespeare reference of the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern play ..... "HERE IS THE PHILOSOPHY OF GUILDENSTERN:" Anyway, I'm sure there are a lot more. Will be interesting to see if anyone can point other little references (or Easter eggs). Depicus, FunkyMike and Unobscured Vision 3 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unobscured Vision Posted July 11, 2016 Share Posted July 11, 2016 Love it! Thanks so much for bringing this to our attention! Love seeing old, gnarly code like this! Jim K 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim K Global Moderator Posted July 11, 2016 Author Global Moderator Share Posted July 11, 2016 aaah....I forgot to link to it. Sorry! Here is the source code for Apollo 11 on github. https://github.com/chrislgarry/Apollo-11 Unobscured Vision 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draggendrop Veteran Posted July 12, 2016 Veteran Share Posted July 12, 2016 This made my day.... The assembler has been available for quite some time at various universities and libraries...but in text or pdf form. command module assembler 1746 pages pdf 1968 revision MIT AGC Instructions and memory map MIT 1966 pdf 52 pages The amazing part is that someone took the time to transcribe this line by line and create a source code for others. The original stack of instructions was almost as tall as a person and was entered by punch cards. (which I still liked a lot more than paper tape splicing) The hardware did not fail for the command module or lunar lander....but...coding issues were present and could have been catastrophic if it were not for some real smart safety coding...the hallmarks of tight control assembler. I consider myself very privileged to be in the field shortly after this and to witness the astounding growth of technology. The new equipment that kept rolling into the lab was nothing short of stunning as solid state slowly pushed analog into niches. Back on topic, The coding and command/lander computers were a triumph obviously and no one can take that away. But one needs context here. A battle was fought with NASA, MIT, IBM and Congress as to what and how it would be built. In the end, MIT did the design and coding, Grumman built it and NASA controlled it. The system had triple redundancy and was built from using only dual 3 input NOR gates in silicon chip format from Fairchild Semiconductor. Shortly after this a few of Fairchild's designers went of and formed their own company....Intel...and one of them was Gordon Moore...yes, Moores law. Many decades have passed, allowing a bit of after thought on decisions made. NASA was still unsure of the reliability of solid state and got caught in a turmoil with industry, educational institutions as well as politics. A decision was made to use the early Fairchild RTL gates, in one form only, which allowed thorough simplified testing for NASA. IMHO and many others, this was a poor call since the RTL was susceptible to radiation and had issues with noise tolerance. The real issue was that an entire family of RTL was available. In 1962, DTL was out as well as Motorolla's high speed ECL circuits and in 1963, TTL entered to dominate with MOS entering in 1965. Entire families of dominate chips existed and MIT chose a RTL dual 3 input NOR gate only, of which took approximately 5000 to build each computer. An example was the LM computer, which over 7 years, cost 46 million in 1966 dollars. Enough of my rambling. Microscopic view of dual, three-element NOR gate, the inside of a silicon chip, used in Apollo. Photo: Lisa Young, Smithsonian This was a great achievement and led industry to the multi nerds, the early Intel adopters, early Texas Instrument geeks, IBM followers and my group, Motorola nerds. This was a time when we designed, built, coded, installed and ran our own toys....great days indeed. This deserves a triple redundancy happy. Unobscured Vision, bguy_1986 and Psyco359 3 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unobscured Vision Posted July 12, 2016 Share Posted July 12, 2016 That's not rambling, DD. It's history, and important history at that. I could read about it all day. Please feel free to share whatever memories, experiences and stories you care to! I personally enjoy them. Draggendrop and bguy_1986 2 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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