Slashdot Mirror
Build Your Own Apollo Guidance Computer
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."
For those who don't know, the above excerpt comes from the comedy genius of Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie, specifically the track "Every OS Sucks".
I build model citizens.
There are two reasons why spaceflight computers are relatively underpowered:
Reliability under conditions your PC would fail, like radiation, shock, vibration, acceleration, heat and cold.
Built to solve unique specialized problems for people who are not entirely computer expert.
Navigation computers have to solve complex solid analytic geometry problems for people who are experts in solid analytic geometry but aren't experts in computers and don't have the luxury to spend lots of time to do that.