The Charming Genius of the Apollo Guidance Computer - Brian Troutwine
Why Hacker News recommends it
Recommended as a wonderful overview of the AGC architecture, though one commenter found it uninspiring.
What it is
Brian Troutwine's Code Mesh 2015 talk on the Apollo Guidance Computer. It covers the AGC's design, core rope memory, its interrupt and software behavior, and the pioneering engineering effort behind it.
Recommended by 2 HN commenters across 2 different months, 2015 to 2019.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec EvanAnderson · 2019-07 · on “Apollo 11 Had a Hidden Hero: Software”
"The Charming Genius of the Apollo Guidance Computer" is a wonderful talk: [this video] The AGC implemented a virtual machine to run higher-level computational routines. The whole architecture is really interesting.
Recommends shawnps · 2015-11 · on “The Charming Genius of the Apollo Guidance Computer [video]”
The part about core rope memory was pretty interesting. Star charts and other bits of data were actually woven into a form of read-only memory via loom: [this video] [LINK]
Recommends EvanAnderson · 2015-11 · on “In 1975, the USSR fired a cannon from an orbiting space station”
I was going to say much of the same, but I won't echo you. I just recently watched this really interesting video from London Code Mesh 2015 on the Apollo Guidance Computer where the radar antenna-generated interrupts were discussed (among other interesting bugs). [this video]
Critical alephnil · 2017-12 · on “Apollo Guidance Computer Talk”
A not so inspiring talk about a very inspiring topic. A much better talk about the Apollo guidance computer was held at Code Mesh London 2015: [this video]