While trying to find more information about
the book "Between Human and Machine: Feedback, Control,
and Computing before Cybernetics" that I mentioned
earlier, I came across a streaming video clip (little
over an hour long) of professor Mindell discussing
his book:
http://web.mit.edu/mitworld/content/authors/mindell.html
click on "View->>"
A very interesting listen.
Towards the end of the clip he mentions that his
next project will involve the evolution of virtual
environments starting with flight simulators in the
1930, through Apollo, to the internet today. I also noticed
during my search that he is the point of contact about
the Apollo Guidance Computer for the "History of Recent
Science & Technology" web site at MIT -
http://hrst.mit.edu/
Anyway, since some people here have been asking for
more information on the AGC, I thought I would mention
that the "History of Recent Science & Technology" web
site has a great library of PDF documents on the AGC at
http://hrst.mit.edu/groups/apollo/bibliography/q-and-a.tcl?topic_id=11&topic=Document%20Library
I glanced through some of the files. Many of them are
quite large.
The first file, "Apollo Guidance and Navigation Lunar
Module Student Study Guide" seems to be a very detailed
manual on the workings of the computer, including a list
of machine instructions.
"Demonstration of the AGC" is a video clip of the computer
being operated.
"Astronauts' Guidance and Navigation Course Notes" is a
introduction to functioning of the whole Apollo Guidance
and Navigation System.
And the file "Luminary 131" (which is a 637MB 1742 page PDF
file that took me 2 hours to download at 90kps!!!) is entitled
"Apollo Luminary 131 (1C) Program Source Code Listing
"19 Dec 1969 NOTE: This listing contains the flight program
for the Lunar Module as created by MIT's Draper Lab for the
Apollo 13/14 moon missions"
And many many more..
--Doug
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Doug Coward
_at_ home in Poulsbo, WA
Analog Computer Online Museum and History Center
http://dcoward.best.vwh.net/analog
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Received on Wed Jan 01 2003 - 14:24:00 GMT