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Build Your Own Apollo Guidance Computer

Posted by michael on from the some-assembly-required dept.

PingXao writes "Well, if you can't exactly give the Moon you can give the gift of a computer to get you there. Almost a year ago this Slashdot story about the Apollo 11 Guidance Computer referenced a pretty cool Dr. Dobbs Journal article from their History of Computing series. Now there's this guy who built one in his basement! It took him 4 years, $2,980 in cash, 2,500 hours of labor and 15,000 hand-wrapped wire connections with 3,500 feet of wire to build. It might be next Christmas before you could build one of your own to give as a gift, but he promises you can build your own for less and it will be better than his. The perfect gift for the space geek who has everything. This guy is my hero."

11 of 218 comments (clear)

  1. Fantastic by Icarus1919 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Now all he has to do is build his own apollo 11, and he's all set to go to the moon! He just has to pay a few hundred million to get the rockets to take it up.

  2. Give it as a gift? by Prophetic_Truth · · Score: 5, Funny

    [me] HI AUNT EDNA! Look what I built for you! Its an exact replica of the Apollo guidance computer!
    [Aunt Edna] uh, thanks?

    --
    time is a perception of a being's consciousness
    time is your 6th sense, the wierd ones are 7+
  3. Or... by binderhead126 · · Score: 3, Funny

    You could just hack a Gameboy Advance, and have even more horsepower! To the MOOOOOOOOOOOOON!!!!!!!!

  4. yea but... by mindwar · · Score: 5, Funny

    will it run Linux? ... or at least NetBSD?

  5. Re:Kinda makes you wonder, by Average_Joe_Sixpack · · Score: 5, Funny

    Easy, they weren't bogged down with a GUI.

  6. Every operating system sucks... by powerlinekid · · Score: 5, Funny

    you see, I come from a time in the nineteen hundred and seventies
    when computers where used for two things
    too either go to the moon or play pong
    and nothing inbetween, you see
    and You didn't need a fancy operating system to play pong
    and the men who went to the moon, god bless them
    did it with no mouse
    and a plain text only black and white screen
    and thiry-two kilobytes of ram

    Beyond that, this guy is lucky its christmas because with multiple 4-9 meg pdf files it would be a silent night for his server.

    --

    can't sleep slashdot will eat me
    1. Re:Every operating system sucks... by powerlinekid · · Score: 5, Funny

      No no, you got it all wrong. The thing that looked like pong really was the guidance program. The first paddle was earth, the second was the moon and the little dot was the capsule.

      --

      can't sleep slashdot will eat me
  7. And now it's been linked to by Slashdot. by Nanoda · · Score: 5, Funny

    10$ says it's flashing "1202" right about now...

    1. Re:And now it's been linked to by Slashdot. by agtorange · · Score: 4, Funny

      Well then all he would have to do it flip it off and take the thing in on manual.

  8. Sucker! by bbh · · Score: 5, Funny

    With that kinda money you could rebuild the sound stage they faked the first trip to the moon on!

    -bbh

  9. Limits of simulation? by Tablizer · · Score: 3, Funny

    Can it simulate the part where the sensor loop queue was overloaded because they forgot to turn off the rendevous radar and the warning lights went crazy and Neil or Buzz wet his suit? (I have no official info that they did, but I bet at least one did but never told anyone.)

    --
    Table-ized A.I.