[Coco] OT: (sort of): The Apollo 11 moon landing's fourth crew member? A computer far ahead of its time

[Neil Cherry]

On 7/21/19 5:38 PM, James C. Hrubik wrote:
> My son-in-law sent me the following link, knowing I am an 8-bit Luddite.
> 
> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/apollo-11-moon-landings-fourth-crew-member-computer-far-fishman

The AGC was an advanced tool but it still doesn't remove the human. I know
MIT wanted full automation but that assumes everything going to plan. But that
doesn't allow for the unknown. Humans can adjust as long as they have enough
of the basic tools to get the job done.

>  What is amazing to me is the stupidity of some of the commenters.  If their grasp of
> basic scientific principles and facts is common among the current generation, we will
> never make it to Mars.

I could go off on a number of rants about education and intelligence.
One thing I accidentally learn to do was think (something not taught in
school and sadly something I wish I was better at - I'm an intelligent
idiot). We've learned to trust what we're told and with today's multiple
sources we choice to listen to what we we agree with. Much of the 'news'
is just opinions. We no longer consider another side.
... and here I stop ...

> I am still in awe of the power of the mightly little CoCo3, realizing how far advanced
> it was beyond the AGC.  And to think we were able to pick it up at the time for just a
> few hundred bucks at the most, boggles the mind.

The AGC is an amazing embedded computer and the 6809 and incredibly advanced
processor. I'm still not sure we can do a 1:1 comparison between the two. But
most of the comparisons I've seen are so wrong. The AGC was a navigational
computer it wasn't a general purpose computer. A lot of the advanced computing
was handled by the mainframes or slide rulers and human computers.

Now, when I first started working as a EET I worked at a place where
we had a Gimix Ghost, a multiuser multitasking computer based on a 6809
and OS9 Level II.

And I am reading Frank O'Brien's AGC book and the Digital Apollo book.
-- 
Linux Home Automation         Neil Cherry       ncherry at linuxha.com
http://www.linuxha.com/                         Main site
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Author of:    	Linux Smart Homes For Dummies