Eldon C. Hall

There are a large number of books about the Apollo programme. There are also many books about specific aspects of the Apollo programme - the missions, the people, the hardware, the science... Eldon C Hall's Journey to the Moon, however, focuses on one very narrow element of NASA's project to put a man on the Moon: the development of the Apollo Guidance Computer.

See the rest of the review here: rel="nofollow" target="_top">http://spacebookspace.blogspot.com/2008/07/journey-to-moon-eldon-c-hall.html… (mehr)

I've wanted this one for a long time. The Apollo Guidance Computer AGC) was the first computer that was embedded into other hardware, in the sense that the hardware in question could not function without it, and the AGC did not have the familiar screen and keyboard (or in the 60's, a teletype) for users. Since I earn my living building such embedded systems, though admittidly not for spacecraft, I treated my self for Xmas, and I got my money's worth. This book is not a complete technical description of the hardware or software, but is is very strong on the historical details. With these details clear, the reader can embark on a more detailed discovery of the capabilities of this marvelous machine.

Probably only for uber-geeks, but the AGC was amazing for its time, and remains amazing now. Recall the first moon landing, the AGC in the lander was overloaded with data from the rendezvous radar that should not have been switched on, it simply did not have enough time to do all it's computations. This was while it was controlling the lander on it's descent. The AGC software automatically shed less vital tasks so that it could perform the primary task of landing the lander safely. The bad radar data had never occurred in any simulation back on Earth, the software was just built to fail as gently as possible. Amazing stuff.… (mehr)