Another Atari Achievement...

From: Greg Troutman <mor_at_crl.com>
Date: Wed Jun 17 20:39:59 1998

This is one for the, "You can't do squat with those dumb old computers"
file... I picked up a book at a thrift today, called, NEW HORIZONS IN
AMATEUR ASTRONOMY by Grant Fjermedal (C) 1989. Before I got out of the
first chapter I read this excellent little tidbit:

"...David Gedalia, of California's San Fernando Valley, attracted a lot
of attention by day and night with his 10-inch reflector on a
servo-controlled Dobsonian mount. This was set up near the back of his
pickup truck on the upper field, and on the tailgate of the truck was a
simple 64K Atari 800 computer running a star finding program that
Gedalia had written himself.
        He had all the objects from Messier (the classic catalog of 104
prominent galaxies, nebulae, and other objects identified in the late
1700s) and several hundred other objects from the more voluminous New
General Catalog. It was so nice at night to see him enter a Messier
number, hit "Return" and listen to the purr of the servos as they
positioned the object right in the center of the eyepiece field..."
Received on Wed Jun 17 1998 - 20:39:59 BST