Apollo 11 Guidance Computer source code • Hacker News Board

"A set of interrupt-driven user interface routines called Pinball provided keyboard and display services for the jobs and tasks running on the AGC. A rich set of user-accessible routines were provided to let the operator (astronaut) display the contents of various memory locations in octal or decimal in groups of 1, 2, or 3 registers at a time. Monitor routines were provided so the operator could initiate a task to periodically redisplay the contents of certain memory locations. Jobs could be initiated. The Pinball routines performed the (very rough) equivalent of the UNIX shell." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer#Softw...

Re: Apollo 11 Guidance Computer source code

#14

Post by FroshKiller » Thu, Jul 07, 2016, 1:48 PM UTC

burnbabyburn wrote: post #11

# NOLI SE TANGERE this should be noli me tangere, shouldn't it?

While "noli me tangere" is the Biblical phrase this alludes to, "noli se tangere" would mean in context "don't touch this." It's not that the programmer misremembered "noli me tangere" but that he played on the reference.

Re: Apollo 11 Guidance Computer source code

#15

Post by creshal » Thu, Jul 07, 2016, 1:49 PM UTC

stuxnet79 wrote: post #7

Other than gaining satisfaction from the historical importance of this code is there any conceivable way we can get some use of it - like try it out. Even setting that aside, what is it I'm looking at? Assembly?

> is there any conceivable way we can get some use of it

I wonder whether there's any way of getting it into one of the autopilots for Kerbal Space Program.

Re: Apollo 11 Guidance Computer source code

#16

Post by ahunt09 » Thu, Jul 07, 2016, 1:49 PM UTC

burnbabyburn wrote: post #11

# NOLI SE TANGERE this should be noli me tangere, shouldn't it?

Is it possible the author intended it to mean `don't touch this/it`, instead of `don't touch me`?

Re: Apollo 11 Guidance Computer source code

#17

Post by anvandare » Thu, Jul 07, 2016, 1:51 PM UTC

burnbabyburn wrote: post #11

# NOLI SE TANGERE this should be noli me tangere, shouldn't it?

Yes, but I think the author meant "don't touch this". 'Se' is third person, but reflexive, so it should be: "noli id tangere"

Re: Apollo 11 Guidance Computer source code

#18

Post by sgt » Thu, Jul 07, 2016, 1:56 PM UTC

Take note of the KALMAN_FILTER.s source code file. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalman_filter for details. The filter is named after Rudolf Kalman who recently passed away. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_E._K%C3%A1lm%C3%A1n)

Re: Apollo 11 Guidance Computer source code

#19

Post by Someone1234 » Thu, Jul 07, 2016, 1:58 PM UTC

rangibaby wrote: post #9

stuxnet79 wrote: post #7

Other than gaining satisfaction from the historical importance of this code is there any conceivable way we can get some use of it - like try it out. Even setting that aside, what is it I'm looking at? Assembly?

I'm pretty sure there is a website that simulates this computer 100% /e http://svtsim.com/moonjs/agc.html

I've tried to play with that before, it is pretty incomprehensible even after reading the descriptions and Wikipedia article.

I feel like the source is likely clearer than that interface...

Re: Apollo 11 Guidance Computer source code

#20

Post by alehander42 » Thu, Jul 07, 2016, 1:58 PM UTC

people could've really used a higher-level language compiling to optimized AGC(apollo computer) assembly. Is there any reason why they didn't develop one? It seems it would've helped tremendously with the productivity and verification (and a lot of the explanations and equations would be readable as code, not as an non-executed comment)