If Apollo was fake, then why you using the computer today?

Yes, We can thank the Apollo landing for also putting hollywood on the map in now to make good sci-fi movie.

Sorry, but I can't take the Apollo guidance computer seriously.
Its operating system makes me laugh when I read it.
An instruction coding which is illogical and aberrant, a memory addressing which is limited to 12 bits when it could have been done on 16 bits, which would have avoided using memory bank switching (as well on data as on program memory) which requires extra hardware and is very penalizing (waste of memory space and execution time).
Weird instructions, sometimes not even documented, or incompletely, so unpractical to use that I can hardly find an use for them, basic instructions missing.
I really loved the hardware pulses which take CPU time through "unprogrammed sequences", which is a total inepty; never a CPU would waste time counting hardware pulses, this task is always given to an electronic counter the CPU can read through an I/O channel (and this electronic counter can also trigger an interrupt of the CPU).
Concerning the program itself, it's full of errors (addresses illegally specified as arithmetic expressions containing multiplcation and/or division, or as a numeric floating value, illegal or duplicate labels, redundant instructions); the summit is reached with a subroutine calling another subroutine, which is not possible since the return address is stored into an unique register, which prevents a subroutine from calling another one.
As a professional programmer, long familarized with assembler and real-time systems, I absolutely can't take seriously the AGC.

reply to post by InquisitiveGuy

Sorry, but I can't take the Apollo guidance computer seriously.
Its operating system makes me laugh when I read it.

Oh I see the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory
isn't capable of making things work, remember this is 1960's programing.

BTW its called EXEC, like executive. Amazing that on windows systems then use EXE files!


Then again your your using Apollo Guidance Computer, decendants to post your dislike of their software and technology!

makes sense to me!


Like the thread reads why are you using the computer today, only because of Apollo!

BTW your comment about 12 bits is completely inaccurate, the address length is 16 bits:AGC

The on-board Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) was about 1 cubic foot with 2K of 16-bit RAM and 36K of hard-wired core-rope memory with copper wires threaded or not threaded through tiny magnetic cores. The 16-bit words were generally 14 bits of data (or two op-codes), 1 sign bit, and 1 parity bit.

[edit on 29-4-2010 by theability]

[edit on 29-4-2010 by theability]