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Scrap Dealer Finds Apollo-Era NASA Computers In Dead Engineer's Basement (arstechnica.com)
Long-time Slashdot reader Joe_NoOne quotes Ars Technica:
A pair of Apollo-era NASA computers and hundreds of mysterious tape reels have been discovered in a deceased engineer's basement in Pittsburgh... Most of the tapes are unmarked, but the majority of the rest appear to be instrumentation reels for Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11, NASA's fly-by missions to Jupiter and Saturn... At some point in the early 1970s, an IBM engineer working for NASA at the height of the Space Race took home the computers -- and the mysterious tape reels. A scrap dealer, invited to clean out the deceased's electronics-filled basement, discovered the computers. The devices were clearly labelled "NASA PROPERTY," so the dealer called NASA to report the find. "Please tell NASA these items were not stolen," the engineer's heir told the scrap dealer, according to the report. "They belonged to IBM Allegheny Center Pittsburgh, PA 15212. During the 1968-1972 timeframe, IBM was getting rid of the items so [redacted engineer] asked if he could have them and was told he could have them."
"NASA told the family of the deceased that it was not in the junk removal business," Ars Technica reports, adding "The two computers are so heavy that a crane was likely used to move the machines." A NASA archivist concluded there's no evidence the tapes contained anything of historic significance.
"NASA told the family of the deceased that it was not in the junk removal business," Ars Technica reports, adding "The two computers are so heavy that a crane was likely used to move the machines." A NASA archivist concluded there's no evidence the tapes contained anything of historic significance.
So, the stuff is found in 2015, it's news in 2017, and while it's understandable that NASA doesn't want the computers back, there's no room for them in the Smithsonian, or any of the other space museums?
Moreover, they missed the really interesting part in the summary: The computers are labeled CONTRACT NO. NAS5-2154, a contract which apparently NASA has no paperwork for. Between that, and over 2/3 of the tapes not having any verifiable mission data on them, something, somewhere, doesn't add up.
To be fair, if it was some sort of secret contract, odds are good that 1970s NASA would have required the machines and tapes be destroyed at that time. Either way, definitely an interesting find, and I hope they'll end up in a museum.
The real question is how did the engineer afford to live for 45 years of early retirement after being laid off for being old.
Sounds like he had some of the original movie set from the moon landings. The reels of film probably contain deleted scenes and earlier takes the director decided to shitcan.
A NASA archivist concluded there's no evidence the tapes contained anything of historic significance.
Yes, there is no evidence when one does not look. I believe that a few dozen reels had labels; hundreds of reels had no labels, their contents unknown. If was a great leap of faith to assume that they were all Pioneer telemetry. Other missions? Software?
Now if they said we don't have the equipment, software or budget to clean and restore the degraded and molded tape, and that the likelihood of successful restoration is quite low, that would have been more honest than "there's no evidence".
Hm?
...play the five tones.
Apparently nothing of value was lost then.
is it really doing CSI? (CSI = Crime Scene Investigation).
Here, they are discussing about more things than the crime of this poor engineer.
About 20 years ago as a teenager I was visiting relatives in Huntsville Alabama. Walking through a middle class residential neighborhood I noticed a large pile of oolldd 100 Meg Zip drives marked 'Declassified' in a big box. Well being the dedicated dumpster diver and general scavenger and general conspiracy nut I was at the time I snagged all I could and took them hold with me to.... another state in the US. Zip Drives were already way out of day by that time so I had to get a used reader for the things. Only about 2/3rds of the discs worked but they were all full of multi media presentations of an early version of our missile defense systems here in the US. All pretty dry and not all that detailed but it just goes to show you what people throw out.
will come through and recover the analog contents of the tapes, and if possible release them to the public. Even if the data is 'of no historical significance', disk space is cheap today, and recovering old data which could be gone over with modern techniques by amateurs, or extracurricularly by professionals could reveal some insight that was otherwise overlooked, assuming of course documentation on those computer systems and/or the old mission data formats is available.
Would be pretty hilarious for it to turn out something important could be discovered from this old data given the period of time the telemetry would have taken place over.
We need to make a harder push for the open information age, and as a side effect put resources forth on the recovery of data from *EVERY* legacy analog/digital storage medium that is recovered as people die/old storage facilities are discovered/cleaned out/looted.
Dammit, I knew I should have disposed of those zip drive tapes more carefully.
The tape probably only contain copies of old Doctor Who episodes.
The tapes are standard 1/2", probably recorded as 7 track at 556bpi NRZ, with the opposite parity to IBM - cos that is normal for CDC of that age. Probably readable by sprinkling iron oxide and counting the ridges or you could replace the electrolytics in the tape drives. SCSI compatible tape drives are available on Ebay..
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
are retards.
HOW THE FUCK DO THEY KNOW? This is a historical mistake. I beseech any affluent SD reader to buy these tapes quick like a bunny before they get shredded or something.
...no.
It's not so much the gear as the knowhow. You often have to cook old 9 track tape (there is a recipe) to get it to unstick and get one last read out of it. Then you get to clean all the magnetic dust out of the drive and repeat the whole process for the next tape.
I'm not the dude, but I know someone that far gone.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
How about the lost raw video feed of the Apollo 11 moon landing? The existing video copy everyone has seen was made with a video camera pointed at a monitor displaying the raw feed. 1968-1972 covers exactly the time frame of this lost video. Anyone at NASA would have to be a fool to not at least check out what's on these tapes.
Unlabelled or labelled without mission-related identifying information: approximately 215 reels
The archivist’s final recommendation: Destroy the tapes. “There is no evidence that suggests this material is historically significant... I recommend disposal through the immediate destruction of all magnetic tapes.”
I wish we {I} could recover the data and see that is there. The 215 reels of unlabeled data could be of value; and I believe is worth the time to investigate.
HOW THE FUCK DO THEY KNOW?
They did prefer not to look. So they are absolutely right that there is no evidence the tapes contain anything.
Like UFOs, these are just UMTs, Unknown Magnetic Tapes.
Fuck the archivist. The tapes would have brought a decent return if they were just thrown on eBay and advertised as what they are (unread unknown NASA tapes.)
It might upset the archivist's apple cart, though. They probably have their own agenda and don't need pesky amateurs getting access to the tapes and potentially proving them wrong.
... ellipses ...
HOW THE FUCK DO THEY KNOW? This is a historical mistake. I beseech any affluent SD reader to buy these tapes quick like a bunny before they get shredded or something.
Fuck yeah. Ok the recovery process may be a bit tedious, but they have the gear now and what other Apollo era data can be read with these machines.
All of it would probably fit on a usb stick.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
So invested in their opinions that the possibility of finding something that will contradict their invested mental effort is too much to face.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
I still have tons of gear I bought at company surplus sales back when I worked in medical imaging design and manufacturing. Some companies even sell their surplus to the general public.
Apaprently the tapes were in extremely poor condition (mold etc)
Why would anybody retire to Pittsburgh? I thought engineers made enough to retire to somewhere worth living.
I guess if you pay them the shipping fees they will send them to you.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
The problem we had was getting pinch rollers that hadn't turned into the goo that old plastic foam does. We finally found a junk collector who had one, burned all our tapes onto hard drives, and chucked the big HP tape transport into the dumpster with a satisfying THUD.
Multiple times. For example, I remember once meeting a guy who worked for a company that formerly used mainframe computers. They were so huge they couldn't give the darn things away and couldn't afford to pay anyone to disassemble and remove them from the premises. He was going to volunteer to take them out free of charge and set them up in his garage and lease them out to other companies on an as-needed basis and charge by the number of MIPS consumed. Only one problem: wife wouldn't let him do it. But nevertheless, its not the first time I've seen an older computer guy make a serious attempt to somehow hold-on a huge old computer they spent years working on.