Apollo Guidance Computer clone
posted Aug 31st 2008 8:30pm by Eliot Phillipsfiled under: daily, misc hacks
[Cliff Miller] pointed out this incredible project from 2004. [John Pultorak]’s journey began in late 2000 when he decided to build a 60’s or 70’s era minicomputer. While gathering technical documentation, he found some interesting information on the Apollo Guidance Computer and felt that was the way to go. The AGC was the first integrated circuit computer ever built. Designed by MIT in 1964 it was constructed from ~5000 ICs, almost all 3-input NOR gates. [John]’s version uses late 1960’s 74LS TTL logic which gains him a 10 to 1 reduction in the number of ICs. A good thing when you have to do ~15K wirewrap connections. He also used flipflops and register chips instead of building everything from NOR gates. [John] essentially built the AGC three times: First, he coded a simulator in C++. Then, he imported the logic design into CircuitMaker to verify that it would actually work. Finally, he built the 3 by 5foot machine. He’s provided an amazing amount of documentation for anyone that wants to explore this device and the overview alone is well worth a look.
Hackaday readers may also enjoy this link, http://www.doneyles.com/LM/Tales.html. Don Eyles, one of the software engineers on the AGC, provides a first-hand report of developing the original software and supporting a system located 250,000 miles away. He provides explanations of inertial guidance and the state of the art in the 60s. Most enjoyable.
Posted at 9:53 pm on Aug 31st, 2008 by Cliff Miller