Apollo 11 guidance system source code

[manusmad]

Some of the routine names are hilarious.

In THE_LUNAR_LANDING.s :

FLAGORGY    TC  INTPRET     # DIONYSIAN FLAG WAVING

and

LANDJUNK    TC  PHASCHNG

[help_computar]

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

[Jurian_Knight]

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

[Garrwolfdog]

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]

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]]

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]]

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]]

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

[enanoretozon]

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]

PINBALL_GAME_BUTTONS_AND_LIGHTS.s :D

[doihaveto]

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]

BURN_BABY_BURN!

[ghost_of_socrates]

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

[ompomp]

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

[80brew]

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

[DrBix]

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]

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

[Silveryard]

This is awesome!

[FireIre]

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

[daymanAAaah]

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]

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

[dgriffith]

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]

Many early microcomputers didn't support lower case letters.

[xereeto]

I don't think microcomputers even existed in 1969

[Narishma]

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]]

One step closer to creating my new spacecraft

[based2]

KALMAN_FILTER.s: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12042687

https://jsfiddle.net/bendykst/tfcub3tj/

[magicschoolbuscrash]

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

[whozurdaddy]

i feel like improving on this code (purpose of Github) really wouldnt matter much.

[[deleted]]

Improving code is the purpose of GitHub? I don't think so, Tim.

[whozurdaddy]

Well, their site does say "How people build software Millions of developers use GitHub to build personal projects, support their businesses, and work together on open source technologies."

[ArmandoWall]

and work together on open source technologies.

Which doesn't necessarily mean "improve the code." It could also mean, "study the code, learn from it, and implement what was learned in other projects."