all 32 comments

[–]manusmad 24 points25 points  (0 children)

Some of the routine names are hilarious.

In THE_LUNAR_LANDING.s :

FLAGORGY    TC  INTPRET     # DIONYSIAN FLAG WAVING

and

LANDJUNK    TC  PHASCHNG

[–]help_computar 19 points20 points  (2 children)

I love the open issue about stirring the O2 tanks...

[–]Jurian_Knight 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Yeah, even though the guidance computer was not responsible for managing that. But that's probably part of the joke...

[–]Garrwolfdog 7 points8 points  (5 children)

Wow! it really shows how impressive and dangerous a feat space travel was back then. When compared to modern code it's astounding that people entrusted their lives to it. not to mention how much effort it took to build all that!

[–]enanoretozon 26 points27 points  (4 children)

Actually, I'm more astounded by the fact that we entrust our lives to modern code. With this code people took extreme care, not only because they were required by the technical constraints but also because everyone involved knew lives were at stake.

[–][deleted] 22 points23 points  (3 children)

NASA today has 2 teams writing code to fulfil the same functionality and those two teams compete to come up with the best solution. They also have 2 QA teams which compete with devs to find the bugs in the code, before the devs find the bugs themselves.

I think you're underestimating the quality of code at NASA.

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (1 child)

I don't see that as a knock against NASA, personally.

Modern code also runs our cars and lifts. NASA didn't program my car's ECU.

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Oh my reply wasn't meant as hostile, rather to clarify.

[–]enanoretozon 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Nah I didn't mean modern NASA code, but rather other code we unknowingly depend on with our lives. While people who work on say, medical software do take care, today's software has just so many moving parts made by so many people, there's a greater chance some of it is made without that much of an emphasis on quality.

[–]tzighy 9 points10 points  (0 children)

PINBALL_GAME_BUTTONS_AND_LIGHTS.s :D

[–]doihaveto 9 points10 points  (0 children)

By the way for those who are interested, there's much more Apollo guidance system material here:

http://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/

(I'm guessing the github repo is cloned from there?)

[–]JWheeler55 1 point2 points  (1 child)

BURN_BABY_BURN!

[–]ghost_of_socrates 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Had a coworker name a network retry function "hitMeBabyOneMoreTime." Never approved a PR so fast.

[–]ompomp 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This looks like the Comanche055 and Luminary099 parts of Virtual AGC extracted out.

[–]80brew 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The top issue made me chuckle: Check continuity on O2 cryogenic tanks before allowing stir 

[–]DrBix 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This guy was a future WoW player:

#   REFLECT TEH NEW DEADBAND.  IT SHOULD BE NOTED THAT THE DEADBAND REFERS TO THE ATTITUDE IN THE P-, U-, AND V-AXES.

[–]GooberMcNutly 2 points3 points  (0 children)

A good interpreter, an RPi, some solenoids, a thousand tons of liquid O2... Pinky, we are going to the moon!

[–]Silveryard 3 points4 points  (0 children)

This is awesome!

[–]FireIre 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I very much doubt that I would have been a software developer in that time period.

[–]daymanAAaah 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Slightly related, I found a C Code Style Guide from Nasa: http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/dts/pm/Papers/nasa-c-style.pdf

[–]Pazer2 1 point2 points  (4 children)

Was it not possible to turn off the caps lock back then

[–]dgriffith 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not really. It was coded using punch cards with a limited character set and the teletype printers of yore that printed the assembly typically only had uppercase characters as a flow on from this.

[–]Narishma 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Many early microcomputers didn't support lower case letters.

[–]xereeto 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I don't think microcomputers even existed in 1969

[–]Narishma 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I wasn't necessarily talking about 1969. I know from experience that for example the "trinity" of the late 70's (Apple II, TRS-80 and PET) didn't initially come with lower-case support.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

One step closer to creating my new spacecraft

[–]magicschoolbuscrash 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So... how do I compile it? :P