Alan, that reminds me of this documentary - which details how the NASA Apollo Computer contract went to MIT... which was unheard of at that time, to have an university do real work!
It's funny because in an interview with this documentary, they talk about how MIT kept screwing up. Obviously, because the students had no real-world work experience. That happens today - kickstarter and indiegogo are good examples. They're projects "Dreamed up" by hobbyists and students with no real-world experience... which is why the products rarely ever get manufactured.
Ah - well that might do it - if the arduino also had an external eeprom for storage - because that's 36,864 words at 16 bit word length which is 73k ROM - which i guess would require the ATmega2560 (256k) because the other arduinos only have only 32k ROM. On top of that, the regular arduino's only have 2k RAM, which means that's not enough and would require additional hardware. The Apollo computer used 4096 Bytes of RAM, which is twice the amount available on an Arduino. So technically, an Arduino couldn't take you to the moon.
Looks like the most work in the Apollo project, where the computer is concerned, went into how to manufacture the darn thing. All the machines to design and produce. All the procedures that had to be worked out. The programs that had to be created to run the machines. So much by hand and every one had to be perfect. I wonder if any redundancy was built into the modules? Maybe just redundant modules.
You know what would have happened if they had more memory at the time? They would have put more bells and whistles in. Probably nice to have but not really needed bells and whistles. Not to mention more bloated code with things like going to 3 digit accuracy as opposed to 2. A maxim of programming is that the code will expand to fill the available space. Certainly true as far as RAM space goes, even with the gigabytes available today. Limited resources, though, brings about the most innovation and the most creative solutions. Unfortunately the most "creative" (not by the book) methods often break with the next hardware or OS revision.
They didn't have to worry about that though. In a time when funding was generous, no one had to worry about the huge cost of one-of-a-kind parts. Heck, probably everything on the space craft was one-of-a-kind. Every Apollo flight was very risky, but being the first was everything at that time. In the long run though, the monetary cost was well worth it. What they did led to many new industries in the private sector. And they boosted the drive and ambitions of the nerds of the day a great deal. Still do. They're even into humanoid robotics now. About time too.
I grew up wanting to be an astronaut. I truly believed I'd make it into Space before I died. I'm pushing 60 now so I doesn't look like that's going to happen. At least I can benefit from the technology that grew from it. Next best thing I guess.
Alan, that reminds me of this documentary - which details how the NASA Apollo Computer contract went to MIT... which was unheard of at that time, to have an university do real work!
It's funny because in an interview with this documentary, they talk about how MIT kept screwing up. Obviously, because the students had no real-world work experience. That happens today - kickstarter and indiegogo are good examples. They're projects "Dreamed up" by hobbyists and students with no real-world experience... which is why the products rarely ever get manufactured.
@DJ... I was just talking about the arduino's computation abilities compared to the Apollo computer... not it's robustness past the Van Allen belt...
Ah - well that might do it - if the arduino also had an external eeprom for storage - because that's 36,864 words at 16 bit word length which is 73k ROM - which i guess would require the ATmega2560 (256k) because the other arduinos only have only 32k ROM. On top of that, the regular arduino's only have 2k RAM, which means that's not enough and would require additional hardware. The Apollo computer used 4096 Bytes of RAM, which is twice the amount available on an Arduino. So technically, an Arduino couldn't take you to the moon.
Looks like the most work in the Apollo project, where the computer is concerned, went into how to manufacture the darn thing. All the machines to design and produce. All the procedures that had to be worked out. The programs that had to be created to run the machines. So much by hand and every one had to be perfect. I wonder if any redundancy was built into the modules? Maybe just redundant modules.
You know what would have happened if they had more memory at the time? They would have put more bells and whistles in. Probably nice to have but not really needed bells and whistles. Not to mention more bloated code with things like going to 3 digit accuracy as opposed to 2. A maxim of programming is that the code will expand to fill the available space. Certainly true as far as RAM space goes, even with the gigabytes available today. Limited resources, though, brings about the most innovation and the most creative solutions. Unfortunately the most "creative" (not by the book) methods often break with the next hardware or OS revision.
They didn't have to worry about that though. In a time when funding was generous, no one had to worry about the huge cost of one-of-a-kind parts. Heck, probably everything on the space craft was one-of-a-kind. Every Apollo flight was very risky, but being the first was everything at that time. In the long run though, the monetary cost was well worth it. What they did led to many new industries in the private sector. And they boosted the drive and ambitions of the nerds of the day a great deal. Still do. They're even into humanoid robotics now. About time too.
Yep! All that and Tang too!
I grew up wanting to be an astronaut. I truly believed I'd make it into Space before I died. I'm pushing 60 now so I doesn't look like that's going to happen. At least I can benefit from the technology that grew from it. Next best thing I guess.