Minuteman D-17b: The Desktop Computer Was Born in an ICBM (www.youtube.com)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

5 comments fedilink hide all child comments

A video about the Minuteman ICBM's guidance computer by Alexander the ok.

He even made a simulator for it, in case you want to try out what it would have been like to program an ICBM's guidance computer in the 60's 😁

top 5 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[-] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Skimmed through the video and will watch at a later date. Absolutely fascinating. It used to work at a Raytheon company (Cossor in HarlowvUK) on kit that had similar electronics, back in the 70s. It was like being back in the factory :-)

When I was in the Royal Artillery (80-97) we had a system called PADS (Precision Azimuth Determining System) that was used for survey of gun positions. It had some fancy gyroscopes inside. I now know where that originated ;-)

[-] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Ha, that's interesting. In some sense you've been a part of the history of computing.

Glad you liked the video! You might also enjoy Alexander's video about how the Apollo Guidance Computer got turned into the world's first digital fly-by-wire system: Digital Fly-By-Wire: The Apollo Guidance Computer's final gift to the world

[-] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

The computer used by the Artillery (the one I was trained on in the 80s) was called FACE and had a magnetic core memory of about 8k https://nigelef.tripod.com/fc_computer.htm

[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

It's wild that it apparently took up quite a chunk of an FV APC's interior space:

Interesting that the program had to be loaded every time it was switched on, so it didn't have any permanent storage.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Yes, they had a million and one things designed to catch your head, knee, elbow, eye etc. What that diagram doesn't make clear is the bench seat running down the centre for the operators and Command Post Officer (CPO) to sit on. Underneath that were the batteries for FACE, 8 (or possibly 6) great big 12v 100ah lead acid things. Space was at a premium. In this pic I'm sitting with my back to the teleprinter and Bob Cooper was sitting on the commanders seat - it used to drop down and become a seat for a signaller :-) This would have been taken about 1983/4

this post was submitted on 12 Apr 2024

29 points (100.0% liked)

Technology

37340 readers

408 users here now

Rumors, happenings, and innovations in the technology sphere. If it's technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]