Restorers Try to Get Lunar Module Guidance Computer Up and Running | WSJ

In 1976 in a warehouse in Texas, Jimmie Loocke bought two tons of scrapped NASA equipment. Years later he realized it included a computer from an Apollo lunar module, like the one used to guide the lander to the surface of the moon during Apollo 11. Fifty years after that mission, computer restoration experts in Silicon Valley are trying to get his computer working again.

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[moondancer]

For reasons passing understanding, this video falsely asserts that they did it all in two weeks, which really undersells just how much effort this crew went through. It took MONTHS of work. The first video in the series Marc did came out Nov 13, 2018
and the final working run wasn't posted until Jul 16, 2019. The whole team did an amazing job, over a long period of time.

[MLGxBXRxPRO]

The brain power in that room is freaking impressive. I felt dumb just watching

[charlesbeaudry]

This computer is absolutey priceless. Congratulations to the whole team.

[nickygee]

It's so awesome that he chose to restore the AGC. He easily could have just auctioned it off, made a couple hundred grand and called it a day. Taking the time and effort to get it up and running makes the whole thing just so much cooler.

[asten]

It couldn't had ended up in better hands. Well done guys. You saved this piece of history from the junkyard. You can all be very proud of yourselves!!!

[aerospacematt]

I’d love to see them hook up a control stick and run it as a simulation on a modern computer so that someone can manually “land on the moon” using the AGC. That would be so cool!

[Lines]

I watched every bit of the videos they posted about the restoration. Amazingly interesting stuff. Hearing the programs were gone, nothing could run it, nobody knew nothing about nothing, so gratifying to see the restoration bring together the programmers and run the program.

[donmoore]

This was a thoroughly fascinating project. I watched all the videos. Simply amazing. When they powered up the computer memory, and recovered the last state of the computer in magnetic memory - including the latitude and longitude - you felt like you were there 50 years ago. A very impressive achievement. This was most deserving of being featured by WSJ - it is very inspirational for our creators of the future.

[brandona]

I watched this series on Marc's YouTube channel from day one and it was an incredible journey!! The series has some incredible moments and absolutely worth checking out. As a space tech enthusiast, I wish I had enough brain power to have had even a small part in this project.

[glidershower]

The past must be studied in order to understand our present and then plan for our future.

Old tech is always a humbling kick right in the commodity of what we take for granted!

[personwhotalkstomuch]

It still amazes me that something so complex at the time was the start of the computer tech that we now take for granted. To me it seems unbelieveable that our mobile phones contain more circuits & processing power etc than the ones that actually landed man on the Moon. Congratulations to Marc & his team for preserving a very special part of exploration history.

[freguerfont]

It hurts me that such historical artifacts ended up as scrap instead of in a museum or a historical collection but, on the other hand, it may had been this that made it possible for this computer to end up in the right hands after all, and I'm happy it did!

[tomservo]

CuriousMarc's video series on this was a nail bitter --- every video was gold and I couldn't wait for the next one. The last video was so satisfying.

[capablanca]

I am an enthusiast of the Apollo missions. I love to see a group of sinior gentlemen dedicated with passion to recover the past for the next generations. I congratulate you and wish you success and recognition in this noble venture.

[philmayf]

I remember following along with the progress on Marc's channel. It's such an interesting trip through reverse engineering with some heavyweights. Ken Shirriff is such a titan of reversing silicon that it's crazy. It's amazing they sussed out the inner workings and managed to make it work at all.

[Mike_Davidson]

*2 KB worth of RAM and a 4 MHz CPU landed Apollo 11 on the moon. It's really hard to comprehend that in 2019.* 😂😂😂😂

[freedayfamily]

And today you have people with the latest smartphones and still believe that the earth is flat.

[deirdreorourke]

Big thanks to Jimmie Locke for finding and taking care of this computer, and to CuriousMarc for producing such an amazing series about the restoration

[JMNTLRDRX]

Our modern computers have tons of memory and CPU speed, just to watch porn and memes.

[itubeutubewealltube]

When androids rule the world they will be thankful and, therefore, merciful to their organic creators for keeping alive their ancestors.