Some of you may know of my near obsession with anything relating to space and the space program(s), passed and present. Over the course of my daily procrastination exercise it occurred to me that it might be fun to write an emulator, if possible, for a very simple computer and while randomly searching for the Automatic Guidance Computer instruction set, the very same computer used as the guidance system for both the Command Module and the Lunar Module of the Apollo project, I stumbled upon a link to a fully functional emulator.
This might seem trivial to most and I would agree: the system has no software to run it and just emulates the hardware and reproduces the panel that the astronauts would have interfaced with. But it still fascinates me just how cutting edge the entire program is and how much of a bunch of fucking pansies the Chinese are by comparison some 40 years later (July 16th of this year will mark the 40th anniversary of the landing on the moon).
So in that spirit I tracked down a little documentary on the subject. It's pop science and doesn't get very much in depth but for those of you with about an hour to kill and a penchant for computer nerdom and just how outrageous it was to design just a single but vital component of the entire program you should check it out.
That is unless you're one of those people who believe Man has never been on the moon.
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