From The Earth To Lunar Lander

I had always wondered just how realistic the game Lunar Lander was -- how
much is was simplified compared to a real landing.

Watching the mini-series From The Earth To The Moon recently, it was kind of
scary just how close it really is. The idea is similar, but where the game
gives you one jet which you aim, the real thing had a controlled burn and
orientation thrusters. Still, it captures the basic idea pretty well --
you run out of fuel, you're screwed.

And oddly enough, Monday on Slashdot a link appeared to an article in Dr.
Dobbs Journal about the Apollo guidance computer. It ran at 2.046 Mhz, and
had 36k of rope-core ROM and 2k of RAM. All in discrete circuits. So, it
ran a bit faster than the game, but I don't think it had as much memory.
I'm looking at the MAME source to verify this -- if anyone knows different
it would be interesting to find out.

It did get me thinking, though, that a neat 'new' vector game to write would
be an actual Apollo lander simulator, complete with a DSKY input interface.
It would probably have to be simplified, but I think it would be interesting
to have to program in a main burn, and then actually work on the landing
with lateral jet bursts. You wouldn't even need a cockpit -- the actual
Apollo astronauts landed while standing up !

Oh -- and people are already discussing writing an emulator for the AGC.

The Slashdot discussion is at:
http://slashdot.org/articles/01/02/05/1637253.shtml

The Article itself is at:
http://www.ddj.com/columns/history/2001/0101hc/0101hc001.htm

==========================================================
Chris Candreva -- chris@westnet.com -- (914) 967-7816
WestNet Internet Services of Westchester
http://www.westnet.com/

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Received on Wed Feb 7 10:40:00 2001