tspof on Nostr: Michael Newton, a commercial aircraft avionics engineer from Calgary, has led the ...

Michael Newton, a commercial aircraft avionics engineer from Calgary, has led the open-source project Recreate Apollo, which uses a Raspberry Pi running the Virtual AGC emulator to recreate the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) and its Display and Keyboard (DSKY) at 1:1 scale. The AGC, originally developed by MIT's Charles Stark Draper Laboratory in 1966, operated with less than 100kB of memory and a 1.024MHz clock speed, enabling Apollo astronauts to perform navigation, autopilot, and orbital maneuvers. Newton's recreation includes 3D-printed components based on recently translated MIT engineering documents, with approximately 90% visual authenticity. He modified internal mounts for modern hardware like Raspberry Pi and used mechanical keys to replicate the keypad functions. The VirtualAGC emulator preserves the original asynchronous timing and data logic, making it a highly accurate virtual reproduction of the original AGC. Newton emphasizes the ingenuity of the original design, such as the use of only three-input NOR gates and magnetic core rope memory. The project is fully documented on GitHub to allow others to build their own replicas.

Source: https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/recreate-the-apollo-guidance-computer/



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